Massachusetts Books

Can we trust our courts to apply the law to the facts in controversial cases involving race and to rule on the law, putting persnal feelings and political agendas aside? Mr. Walkowski says such innocent trust is misplaced, and in this, his latest book on how our courts work, tells a tale of deceit, manipulation, congressional betrayal and corruption of judicial intellect on a scale that is unimaginable to the average American. Yet it is all true. Walkowski shows how the meaning of words had to be changed to make a case of discrimination where none existed. In clear, concise and devastating detail, the reader is given a glimpse how, in pursuit of diversity, the United States Supreme Court suspended the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection under law in order to go about the business of racially balancing America's workforce. The price americans have paid for this judicial social engineering, Walkowski, says, has had the opposite effect of what was intended. Race relations have soured, not improved. Worse, blacks and Hispanics have been led to believe that preferential programs aimed at them are remedial, and that opposition to those efforts is fueled by bigotry. Affirmative Action/Affirmative Discrimination is not going to sit well with those who support managed diversity.

Paul Walkowski has done it again. This time, in another outstanding book on how the federal courts fabricated discriination in employment cases back in the early 70's, and how those findings affect us today. I read his earlier work on the courts, "From Trial Court to the United States Supreme Court", and believe that Walkowski is the most precise critic of our courts in years. Walkowski, in 147-pages, gives us a clear, concise and devastating look at how the federal courts fabricated a case of racial discrimination in the Boston police and fire departments, and how the liberal Burger Supreme Court remained silent while the lower courts went about restructuring society to obtain judicial diversity. This book is an excellent account of the dangers of managed racial diversity, and should be required reading in political science and law classes. More than that, every American who is concerned about the way our courts became tools of the progressives in congress, and how those branches betrayed the promise of the Fourteenth Amendment, will find this fast reading book a primer on the corruption of thought that has swept our nation on this very important issue. I strongly recommend this book.

Finally, an introduction to these two Deerfield MA sisters who turned to photography as a trade when deafness interfered with teaching careers. At a time when women weren't commonly professional photographers, they were able to successfully support themselves with commercial sales of pictures which were sensitive and artistic at the same time as marketable. Flynt gives us a detailed biography, many illustrations, and a hundred full-page plates of their beautiful photographs. The foreword is rich in detail about other women photographers of the time. This book is informative specifically about two women succeeding in their career, but also about the development of photography as an art form, the idealization of rural life culturally, and the political nuances of feminism at that point in time. Readers will be happy to have made acquaintance with the Allen sisters and savored their bucolic, charming, and tranquil pictures of life, specifically of children and their simple pleasures. Flynt has done an admirable job presenting the hard work of the Allens that resulted in such delicate images.

Rare is it that any photographic book captures the imagination as does this book. The Allen sisters tale of woe school teachers gone deaf to becoming world renowned photographers from the Arts & Crafts movement is quite the metamorphises. Long and short of it this book is a testament to the strength of character of these women as they overcome lives chalanges to embrace their fullest potential in an era when women couldn't even vote. Kudos Ms. Flynt for collecting the best collection of Allen sisters photographs I've ever seen and writing, with annotation such a fine piece of literature. Ms. Rosenblum's introduction as in all her world class work set the plate for one of the finest Photographic books to be published in years.

This is one of my favorite hiking guides for the Boston area -- varied hikes, easy maps, mostly accurate. Crane Beach and Halibut Point are two of the prettiest places in New England & shouldn't be missed.

Great book. The AMC guides are so thorough, but this is thorough and readable. Enjoy New England with this book.

While the experiences of Holocaust survivors have been traditionally represented by Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel, Halina Nelken offers a third approach to Holocaust studies blending diary entries, post-war reflections, and an academician=s critique. Drawing from her diary composed over the six-year period from 1938-1943, Nelken intersperses into the text occasional comments as well as reminders of the greater historical context. As a contribution to survivor literature, Nelken's work has the making of a classic.

Nelken's vision of everyday Jewish life in pre-war Poland was/is that of a good life. As for rising Antisemitism in Poland and Germany, it had little impact upon Nelken's sense of her Jewish identity before the war. Following the defeat of Poland, Nelken's family moved into Krakow's Jewish ghetto. In the beginning, Nazi policy towards Jews appeared intent on humiliation rather than as a precursor to extermination. While working at the pharmacy, Nelken became keenly aware of the dangers of being Jewish in Nazi-occupied Europe. Paralleling the story of Oskar Schindler's Jews, Nelken would subsequently be transferred to Plaszow, Auschwitz, and finally, Ravensbrück.

Halina Nelken's book starts slowly - a book anyone over 50 might write about his/her childhood home town--who lived where, what kind of personalities they had, what became of them and their children.... Ah, suddenly it's not so mundane, as so many of these humdrum lives of ordinary people were snuffed out by the Nazis. It is this very ordinariness that serves as a foil for the horrors that Halina Nelken experienced as an adolescent and young woman and writes about - powerfully - in this book. We all know something of what happened in those dark days, but Dr. Nelken makes it personal by telling exactly what happened to her and her family. The book is actually based on the diaries that she kept. Anyone who has seen and appreciated "Schindler's List" should read what kinds of things happened to the people who were not on that list. There are unforgettable moments in this book, such as the young Halina working in an office in Auchswitz and finding a record of the murder of her father. Or the terrible choices she had to make when her mother was too exhausted to continue on a forced march. Only my knowledge that her mother had survived the war made it possible to keep reading this painful account. But, after finishing this book, my overwhelming reaction was that Halina Nelken had taken on the Nazis and won! They tried to reduce her to a sub-human and failed. She came through these terrible experiences without being twisted, without being as bitter as she had a perfect right to be! She not only survived, she survived as a whole person with a sense of humor, a will to succeed, and an ability to relate to other people - even to German people. In a larger sense her book is about the triumph of the human spirit. It is, admittedly, painful to read about the atrocities that took place before and during that horrible war. But we must not ignore the testimony of this strong woman who lived through the things that we don't want to have to think about and came out of it alive and even stronger. Ada M. Prill

This is a fine beginners guide to identifying the tracks you might find while hiking in New England, whether you're in an urban area or on a wilderness hike. While not comprehensive, you will find the more common animals from your environment -- 34 mammals (including mice, squirrels, rabbits, snakes, skunks, frogs and toads, fox, coyote, porcupine, raccoon, deer, moose and bear) and 9 birds (including grouse, crow, duck, owl, heron and eagle).

The book begins with a preface of enouragement followed by an introduction on how to use the book and where/how to look for tracks, continues with 2-page species entries, and concludes with a short suggested reading list and an index.

Entries are ordered roughly by size, and a 5-inch ruler is printed on the back cover. Each entry has a couple of descriptive paragraphs on the lefthand page and b&w line drawings of typical tracks on the right.

This little book is surprisingly informative and quite compact -- a perfect introductory book for kids or adults who are interested in the wildlife around them.

I use this book everytime I go hikin

Well-written book that shows how early Arab immigrants integrated into the American society. We Americans need to know all the facts about Arabs before we judge them and stereotype them. Read Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts. It will help you better understand the Arab mind.

This labor of love documents the experience of Arabs who emigrated to Worcester, Massachusetts between 1880 and 1915. The author, a third-generation Worcester Arab-American, has interviewed immigrants from Lebanon, Syria and Palestine; she dis-cusses their lives and their connections with fellow Arab immigrants in the United States and South America, particularly Brazil. She also highlights the political and eco-nomic factors that brought Arabs to America and led many of them to stay, even after they had met their goal of earning enough to prosper in their homelands. Interviewees, most in their 80's and 90's, are succinctly quoted about subjects including their neighborhoods, work, traditions and education. The author offers evidence aplenty of how hard work and creativity enabled Arabs to put down roots in America, to the bene-fit of the community and the country. APC

From the moment you see the acknowledgements of this book citing previous publication in The Paris Review, Best American Poetry , The Denver Quarterly, Sulfur, and more, you have a clear indication that Anna Rabinowitz is a serious, high caliber poet worth reading. Her poems don't disappoint. Her opening poem, "Blow the Dome," is an ABC-darium that foretells the vibrant, unexpected and effective language and images of the poems in the rest of the book: "Language in the language of the language, movement as the speech that does not lie."

From the start, we see that unlike so many contemporary poets who spend pages and pages contemplating their navels (and who knows what other private parts) Rabinowitz is clearly interested in language, thought, and intellect, rather than in simply re-hashing her own emotional baggage.

Not that her work doesn't have emotional impact. "Fragile Dialectics" is an almost frighteningly chilling view of aging. "Two women finger the fans of their cards. The blonde's bones soften at the bast of her spine...the redheads skull is inlaid with a metal plate the size of a three-by-five index card." Her "Confession" is clean and startling. "Anatomy Lab" is clinical, yet somehow moving. And her poems about art, artists, and creating show that she is an artist herself, fully capable of not only understanding, but conveying the artistic process.

The centerpiece of the book, a long piece called "Dislocations" is an at times emotionally harrowing, at times journalistically removed, and consistently insightful chronicle of the author's visit to post WWII eastern Europe, including family remembrances, and visits to concentration camps. "Crawl into our eyes. They hoard what we remember," intones her Greek (Jewish?) chorus of 6 million dead.

This is not poetry for the faint of heart. And it certainly isn't poetry of the "roses are red," Hallmark card-loving crowd. These poems make you think, feel, and yes, sometimes work. But in the end, it's all worth it - to hear the intelligent voice of an accomplished poet who is unafraid to expose her own emotions, explore the artistic process, and delve into intellectual issues that make us all think.

Anna Rabinowitz, like Duchamps Nude Descending a Staircase, in her poem "Descent" is a woman who "troops down to step out."

So many beauties in this ambitious, accomplished, lyrical collection. The mind is limber and so are the lines: "...ships in a black storm, / vocabularies churning at sea..." There's wit galore, as in "Golem Recipe ... Yields one servant YHWH" and a mordant survey of past and present "time when history ferments in bruised casks..." Not a painter of small canvases, Rabinowitz takes an unsparing look at the way we (too often) live now, "...slave to the common habit / humans have, though companionable, of living out only the personal story." But her own concerns are large and her gifts glorious, delivering us back into a world in which "Against all odds, and past their prime, lychnis, astilbe, lythrum pitch fresh bloom headlong into pale gardens..." Highly recommended!

Robert Bagg's translation of this classic Euripides tragedy is exciting and vigorous. It is a translation that lends itself particularly well to being played on stage, with forceful, stripped down dialogue and choruses that are exquisitely poetic but also very simply presented. An excellent translation for students and actors.

"Bakkhai" ("The Bacchae") was written by Euripides when he was living in Macedonia in virtual exile during the last years of his life. The tragedy was performed in Athens after his death as part of a trilogy that included one extant play, "Iphigenia at Aulis," and one which is lost, "Alcaeon in Corinth." These factors are important in appreciating this particular Greek tragedy because such plays were performed at a festival that honored the Dionysus, and in "Bakkhai" he is the god who extracts a horrible vengeance. The tragedy clearly demonstrates the god's power, but it is a terrible power, which suggests less than flattering things about the deity himself.

Pentheus was the son of Echion and Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, the founder of the Royal House of Thebes. After Cadmus stepped down the throne, Pentheus took his place as king of Thebes. When the cult of Dionysus came to Thebes, Pentheus resisted the worship of the god in his kingdom. However, his mother and sisters were devotees of the god and went with women of the city to join in the Dionsysian revels on Mount Cithaeron. Pentheus had Dionysus captured, but the god drove the king insane, who then shackled a bull instead of the god. When Pentheus climbed a tree to witness in secret the reverly of the Bacchic women, he was discovered and torn to pieces by his mother and sisters, who, in their Bacchic frenzy, believed him to be a wild beast. The horrific action is described in gory detail by a messenger, which is followed by the arrival of the frenzied and bloody Agave, the head of her son fixed atop her thytsus.

Unlike those stories of classical mythology which are at least mentioned in the writings of Homer, the story of Pentheus originates with Euripides. The other references in classical writing, the "Idylls" written by the Syracusean poet Theocritus and the "Metamorphoses" of the Latin poet Ovid, both post-date "Bakkhai" by centuries. On those grounds, the tragedy of Euripides would appear to be entirely his construct, which would certainly give it an inherent uniqueness over his interpretations of the stories of "Medea," "Electra," and "The Trojan Women."

I see "Bakkhai" as being Euripides' severest indictment of religion and not as the recantation of his earlier rationalism in his old age. The dramatic conflicts of the play stem from religious issues, and without understanding the opposition on Appollonian grounds of Pentheus to the new cult readers miss the ultimate significance of the tragedy. This is not an indictment of Appollonian rationalism, but rather a dramatic argument that, essentially, it is irrational to ignore the irrational. As the fate of Pentheus amply points out, it is not only stupid to do so, it is fatal. Consequently, "Bakkhai" is one of the most important of Greek tragedies.

In "Beneath The Streets Of Boston: Building America's First Subway", Joe McKendry presents a fascinating, informative, and superbly illustrated history of how the first city subway in America came to be built under the streets of Boston, Massachusetts in 1895. It was a massive construction project that was finally completed and open to the public on July 1, 1918. Subway systems had been built in England and Scotland, but this was the first time in an American metropolis that underground railroads were implemented to ease the transportation gridlocks and traffic jams of ground level transports. Historic photos are combined with drawings to illustrate the tasks and constructions problems that had to be solved and the men who worked to build and then operate this revolutionary system. "Beneath The Streets Of Boston" is unique and very highly recommended for school and community American Transportation History collections, and especially commended to the attention of railroading enthusiasts as well!

I lived in Boston my whole life. McKendry's book is full of information I never knew about our first subway system. The drawings are awesome. My 8 year old son who loves trains is fascinated with the book. He wants me to read it to him every night. Sometimes he just sits by himself and looks at the pictures.

I highly recommend this book both for it's information and the wonderful drawings

This is a wonderful resource for planning excursions in Boston and the environs with children. The entries on sites of interest are full of great information, and the prose is clear and accessible to young readers. The format, including photos and activities, encourages children to help with planning trips and teaches them a thing or two about the city in the bargain. Besides using this book to guide kids around the city, I have given it to visiting relatives and local children (and to some folks who have moved away and wanted their kids to know what they were missing.) All have loved it. Enthusiastically recommended!

I was really pleased to come across this book. Living near Boston, I sometimes need ideas for showing visiting family or friends around the city. Kidding Around Boston is full of great ideas and information about Boston's history and lore. The style is clear and engaging, and the young people I've shown it to have enjoyed it. It's terrific for visitors, but I think it might be equally useful in classrooms as an ancillary book for independent reading.