Sunday, October 31, 2010

The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood


The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood
Product By Harper         (10 customers reviews)
Lowest Price : $11.99 

Technical Details

  • ISBN13: 9780060883522
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Product Description

Jane Leavy, the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, returns with a biography of an American original—number 7, Mickey Mantle. Drawing on more than five hundred interviews with friends and family, teammates, and opponents, she delivers the definitive account of Mantle's life, mining the mythology of The Mick for the true story of a luminous and illustrious talent with an achingly damaged soul.
Meticulously reported and elegantly written, The Last Boy is a baseball tapestry that weaves together episodes from the author's weekend with The Mick in Atlantic City, where she interviewed her hero in 1983, after he was banned from baseball, with reminiscences from friends and family of the boy from Commerce, Oklahoma, who would lead the Yankees to seven world championships, be voted the American League's Most Valuable Player three times, win the Triple Crown in 1956, and duel teammate Roger Maris for Babe Ruth's home run crown in the summer of 1961—the same boy who would never grow up.
As she did so memorably in her biography of Sandy Koufax, Jane Leavy transcends the hyperbole of hero worship to reveal the man behind the coast-to-coast smile, who grappled with a wrenching childhood, crippling injuries, and a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. In The Last Boy she chronicles her search to find out more about the person he was and, given what she discovers, to explain his mystifying hold on a generation of baseball fans, who were seduced by that lopsided, gap-toothed grin. It is an uncommon biography, with literary overtones: not only a portrait of an icon, but an investigation of memory itself. How long was the Tape Measure Home Run? Did Mantle swing the same way right-handed and left-handed? What really happened to his knee in the 1951 World Series? What happened to the red-haired, freckle-faced boy known back home as Mickey Charles?
"I believe in memory, not memorabilia," Leavy writes in her preface. But in The Last Boy, she discovers that what we remember of our heroes—and even what they remember of themselves—is only where the story begins.


Amazon.com Review

Product Description
Jane Leavy, the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, returns with a biography of an American original—number 7, Mickey Mantle. Drawing on more than 500 interviews with friends and family, teammates, and opponents, she delivers the definitive account of Mantle's life, mining the mythology of The Mick for the true story of a luminous and illustrious talent with an achingly damaged soul. Meticulously reported and elegantly written, The Last Boy is a baseball tapestry that weaves together episodes from the author's weekend with The Mick in Atlantic City, where she interviewed her hero in 1983, after he was banned from baseball, with reminiscences from friends and family of the boy from Commerce, Oklahoma, who would lead the Yankees to seven world championships, be voted the American League's Most Valuable Player three times, win the Triple Crown in 1956, and duel teammate Roger Maris for Babe Ruth's home run crown in the summer of 1961—the same boy who would never grow up.
As she did so memorably in her biography of Sandy Koufax, Jane Leavy transcends the hyperbole of hero worship to reveal the man behind the coast-to-coast smile, who grappled with a wrenching childhood, crippling injuries, and a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. In The Last Boy she chronicles her search to find out more about the person he was and, given what she discovers, to explain his mystifying hold on a generation of baseball fans, who were seduced by that lopsided, gap-toothed grin. It is an uncommon biography, with literary overtones: not only a portrait of an icon, but an investigation of memory itself. How long was the Tape Measure Home Run? Did Mantle swing the same way right-handed and left-handed? What really happened to his knee in the 1951 World Series? What happened to the red-haired, freckle-faced boy known back home as Mickey Charles?
"I believe in memory, not memorabilia," Leavy writes in her preface. But in The Last Boy, she discovers that what we remember of our heroes—and even what they remember of themselves—is only where the story begins.
Amazon Q&A: Bill Madden Interviews Jane Leavy

For more than 30 years Bill Madden has covered the Yankees and Major League Baseball for the New York Daily News. The author of several books about the Yankees, including Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball, Madden is also the 2010 recipient of the Baseball Hall of Fame's J.G. Taylor Spink Award.
Madden: Your best-selling biography of Sandy Koufax was a tour de force, partly because Koufax was a very private man whose life story had never really been told before. Mickey Mantle’s life is quite the opposite, it’s been in the subject of a spate of different “autobiographies,” some of which he even wrote. Under those circumstances, what made you want to take up another book about him?
Leavy: Originally, I wanted to write about Willie, Mickey and The Duke in New York in the Fifties. The publisher said, “Do The Mick. Everybody loves The Mick.” I was wary because so much had been written about him—he left a paper trail as long as the drive from Commerce, Oklahoma to the Bronx, so I didn’t expect to learn that he’d been raised by a den of Alaskan she-wolves. My challenge was to strip away all the layers of myth that had accumulated and let Mickey breathe. And he, of all people, was my worst source. For example: the knee surgery he said he had after tripping over a drain in the 1951 World Series trying not to run into Joe DiMaggio in centerfield. In fact, he didn’t have surgery until two years later. I only learned that because I went through every day of the New York Times from October 1951 to November 1953 looking for the date the knife fell! That’s why this book took five years and nearly 600 interviews. I wanted to try to understand why after all these years, and all these revelations, Mickey Mantle still means so much to so many people—including me—and the first step was to get the basic facts straight.
Madden: You make the point early on in the book that Mickey was a childhood hero, but you also have a recurring sequence in the book of your first interview with him in Atlantic City in 1983, where—at one point—he drunkenly makes a pass at you. What lingering effect did this have on how you ultimately approached your book?
Leavy: I was plenty nervous when I met him. Mickey was my hero. But, he was also a very particular kind of role model. I was born two months prematurely (in a hospital a mile from Yankee Stadium) and came with some of the flaws that afflict those who don’t incubate as long as we’re supposed to. Mickey taught me how to function with pain and without complaint—his triumphs were mine. I was devastated with how he acted. After I’d taken his hand from my knee, I called the only person I could think of still awake at that hour, a new mother, who basically told me to grow up.
The next morning, over breakfast, I vented my anger and disappointment, railing at him for, among other things, greeting my youthful autograph request with flatulence. He was stunned and remorseful, albeit in a hilariously idiosyncratic manner. He gave me an 8 x 10 glossy that said, “Sorry, I farted, your friend, Mick.” For a moment, I felt I saw behind his crude façade. I decided the only way I could write this book was to acknowledge my lack of dispassion and scrutinize him completely. That’s what happened that weekend in Atlantic City. It forced me to see the world as it was, not how I wanted it to be.
Madden: One of the people I wish I'd been able to interview for my Steinbrenner book was Mantle, if only because I detected a very strained relationship between the two of them. Steinbrenner made a point to deify DiMaggio and had memorial services for Joe, Billy Martin, Roger Maris and Mel Allen, but did nothing for Mickey when he died. In your conversations with Mickey did he ever talk about Steinbrenner and anything that might have led to ill feelings toward each other?
Leavy: When I told Mantle I’d heard the Boss was thinking of turning Monument Park in centerfield into a water park for the disadvantaged youth of the South Bronx, Mantle was completely incredulous. He told me, “It was 480 in centerfield when I played. It’s 420 now and he’s talking about bringing them in farther,” and shook his head. “I was at a banquet one time and I said to him, ‘they ought to let those boys throw the ball up and hit it.’ That pissed him off.”
Mantle was interested in Yankee history—he grilled a friend who saw Babe Ruth lying in state in the rotunda at the Stadium about what it was like to be there that day. But I don’t think he had a whole lot of patience with “Yankeeography.” It was a quick disillusionment. When he signed with the Yankees, reporters asked which Yankee had been his childhood hero. He said, “Stan Musial.” George Weiss, the general manager, immediately “corrected” his memory and from then on Joe D. was his hero. Furthermore, I think he was deeply disappointed with the baseball community’s response—or lack of response—when commissioner Bowie Kuhn banned him in 1983 because of his affiliation with the Claridge Hotel and Casino, a job he had taken to pay for his son Billy’s treatment for non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. He told me, “I feel really kind of bad no one took up for me.” By “no one” I was pretty sure he meant Steinbrenner. The Yankees did little more than observe a moment of silence when Mantle died.
Madden: It would seem that most everybody pertinent to the book cooperated with you, especially the Mantle family. I was grateful for the cooperation I had from George Steinbrenner’s friends and associates when I wrote Steinbrenner, but I had an advantage that you didn’t in that most of them knew me personally and, I suppose, trusted me. As a stranger, did you meet any significant resistance?
Leavy: Danny and David Mantle—Mickey’s sons—and their late mother, Merlyn—were extremely generous with their recollections and insights. Their openness about their lives and their relationship with their father was extraordinary. Like him, they are extremely honest. There’s no put on, as folks in Commerce, Oklahoma like to say. I hope they’ll come away from the book with a deeper understanding of the forces that formed him and contributed to his downfall, but I don’t know how they’ll react.
Madden: This is the definitive “warts and all” biography of Mickey, with heavy emphasis on all of his demons. How do you think Mickey himself would feel about the book?
Leavy: I think it’s an honest book and Mantle was a very honest man. I don’t see this is as a dark book. I hope it’s enlightening in the most literal sense of the word and I hope that critics—and readers at large—will agree. I think the tragedy of Mantle is that he had so little time, at the beginning of his baseball career, and at the beginning of his sober life, to be his best self. He was a decent man who was genetically pre-disposed to alcoholism and enabled his whole life by the trappings of his celebrity. That’s his story. As Billy Crystal told me about his movie, 61*, Mickey wouldn’t have wanted the sugar coat.
His late wife, Merlyn, wrote about the sexual abuse he suffered as a young boy in the family memoir, “A Hero All His Life” and she elaborated on it when we spoke, as did several of his close friends. It turned out that his half sister wasn’t his only abuser and experts tell me that many of the destructive behaviors he manifested are seen in victims of childhood sexual abuse. So, I came away with enormous compassion for him and, I hope, with an answer to the question posed by one of his minor league teammates: “Mickey, what happened?”

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Customer Reviews

  
"RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: THE AUTHOR "THROWS" HIGH & TIGHT TO MANTLE... ALONG WITH PUTTING HIM ON A PEDESTAL... A GOOD COMBO!"" 2010-10-16
By Rick Shaq Goldstein (Danville, Ca, USA)
Part of the author's (Jane Leavy) opening book dedication is: "IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER, WHO TAUGHT ME NOT TO THROW LIKE A GIRL." Her Father would be very proud of the fact that her daughter wrote this book the way she was taught to "throw". This book is written with the perfect combination of exposing without restraint the shortcomings and inappropriateness that was Mickey Charles Mantle, the *COMMERCE COMET*... along with the almost mythical talent and accomplishments this once in a lifetime player achieved. It's akin to the literary combination of a pitcher like Sal "The Barber" Maglie or Bob Gibson dusting you off and then striking you out with pinpoint accuracy.

As welcome as it is to see a new book that includes *MICKEY MANTLE* in the title... seasoned sports fans might immediately ask: What can possibly make this book different as compared to all the previous *MICKEY MANTLE* books? After all, "DURING HIS LIFETIME, MANTLE WROTE OR COLLABORATED ON AT LEAST SIX DIFFERENT BIOGRAPHIES, IN ADDITION TO INSPIRATIONAL AND INSTRUCTIONAL TOMES." "SINCE HIS DEATH, AT LEAST TWENTY NEW VOLUMES HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE CANON." Realizing this, the author "PICKED TWENTY DAYS FROM HIS LIFE AND CAREER FOR CLOSER INSPECTION, EACH PIVOTAL OR DEFINING. THEY REPRESENT HIGHS, LOWS, FLASH POINTS, AND TURNING POINTS."

The varying range of these touchstones in Mantle's life is what elevates this book above the volumes of Mantle books that have come before. His beloved Father, Mutt Mantle's death... monstrous tape measure homeruns that not only first introduced the world to what the talent of Mickey Mantle promised to become... but a tape measure homerun that defined the catchphrase *TAPE-MEASURE-HOMERUN*... and additionally it is both surprising and captivating... the lengths the author goes to in order to possibly disprove the actual reported distance of a record shattering blast. There is also the famous (What isn't famous when it's Mickey Mantle related?) career threatening injury to Mickey in the 1951 World Series when he stepped on a sewer drain cover in the outfield. The author goes way past the injury itself in dissecting the dislike of DiMaggio and his personality and declining skills that helped cause the accident. Leavy does not hold back from discussing how some facts are not as they seem... and how time and memory shade long held beliefs. The fact that the author holds steady throughout the book in her approach of putting even time honored beliefs under the microscope is one of the main strengths of this book.

Additionally... like icing on a cake... the author sprinkles what can only be described as baseball poetry in the midst of her hardcore reporting. If you're the type of baseball fan that loved the movie *FIELD OF DREAMS* and realized that large portions of the script were poetic homage to all that is good about baseball... you'll be touched with the beauty of certain passages. Such as during Mantle's first spring training, when all the rookies were mesmerized, not only with their surroundings but the food. "IT WAS THE STANDING RIB ROAST THAT CIRCULATED THROUGH THE DINING ROOM ON A ROLLING CART. EVERY NIGHT, WAITERS WOULD LIFT THE PLATTER'S HEAVY SILVER-PLATED HOOD AND THE KIDS WOULD HELP THEMSELVES TO A JUICY SLAB OF PROMISE." And the sadness of youth and future potential lost after the horrendous 1951 World Series injury. "THAT OCTOBER AFTERNOON WAS THE LAST TIME MANTLE SET FOOT ON A BASEBALL FIELD WITHOUT PAIN. HE WOULD PLAY THE NEXT SEVENTEEN YEARS STRUGGLING TO BE AS GOOD AS HE COULD BE, KNOWING HE WOULD NEVER BE AS GOOD AS HE MIGHT HAVE BECOME."

As a kid who grew up in baseball crazed New York in the fifties there will always be the discussions/arguments of who was better *WILLIE-MICKEY-OR-THE-DUKE* and I have never seen it more fairly discussed than in this book.
I recommend this book highly.


  
"The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood" 2010-10-15
By Richard A. Duval
I just started reading this book but I am giving it 5-Stars to countermand those who would rather review the price than the content. I hope Amazon will finally step in here and bring reviews back to what they should be.

  
"A thorough and honest review" 2010-10-14
By Alan
A through and painfully honest review of one of the greatest and most compelling sports legends of the 20th century. As in her book about Sandy Koufax, Jane Leavy did meticulous research about the subject matter with numerous interviews with contemporaries. However, despite being a very well written book, the Koufax book left the reader with a sense that we never really knew Koufax. We saw many of his virtues, but there was little insight into Koufax's faults. He almost seemes too good to be true at times. Conversely, the Mantle book leaves very little unanswered. It is brutally honest, showing Mantle as a human being with flaws, warts, imperfections as well as redeeming qualities.

Unlike Koufax, Mantle has been the subject of many books, and his accomplishments, relationships, alcohol issues and sexual exploits have been well documented. But Jane Leavy has broken new ground by her research and personal interactions with Mantle and has provided new insights about the Mick. An outstanding book.

  
"To review one must read!" 2010-10-14
By Irving Faqua (Lafitte, Louisiana)
I ordered the book and gave it 5 stars because it's Mickey "freekin" Mantle and to overcome the other idiots who review something they haven't read or purchased. THANKS for the help now go back o reading comic books that won't disappoint for $1!

  
"The Man behind the Hero, and the Hero behind the Man - A Wonderful Page Turner that you will LOVE!!!!" 2010-10-14
By Richard Stoyeck (Westport, CT)
How wonderful in an age when we don't have heroes anymore, we can go back to an earlier age in our lives, when we did. We can then hand a book like this to our children, and perhaps, just perhaps they can come to understand how a different generation from their own, could have revered such a man as Mickey Mantle, who represented everything that we all wanted to be.

For all of us, it was a dream that could not be fulfilled, but that didn't mean we couldn't still fantasize about it, and maybe that's why some pay so much for collectibles. We are able to hold, or touch something that belonged to the hero, and the hero's journey.


First of all, you must love sports, and sports heroes to thoroughly enjoy this book as I did. Ms. Leavy has captured the real Mickey Mantle, and although she covers the warts and all, this is still very much the story of a hero, a hero of mythic proportions. In ancient Rome there were the Gladiators. In the 20th century, we have our sports heroes, and surely Mickey Mantle captured America's attention like no other.


He made us forget about Joe DiMaggio who dominated an earlier generation of Yankees in center field. DiMaggio knew it, and made Mantle pay for it emotionally for his entire career. You might want to read Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life by Richard Ben Cramer, a great biography of Mantle's predecessor in center field.

Ah, and can Ms. Leavy write; she is accomplished, having earlier penned a magnificent biography of Brooklyn Dodger hero Sandy Koufax. When I began to read about Mickey, I at first wondered if she could capture the same spirit she captured in "Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy". By that I mean could she capture the essence of the man and the time in which Mantle lived. She had done this so well with Koufax, could she do it again.

How do you replicate in words, what it was like to have Mantle in the Bronx, and the Dodgers in Brooklyn? If you are a reader living in Texas, or California, can you do it? The author answered that question and more. This lady is at the top of her game as they say. Through 416 pages she covers it all, Mickey's extraordinary potential, and his partial realization of it, having been plagued by injuries during his entire playing career. What haunted him at night is laid out, from his belief that he would die at an early age as his father did, to his first years in baseball where DiMaggio would not even speak with him. Do you want to know what it was like for this young magnificent talent to be snubbed by the leader of the team while trying to build his own identity? It's all here in story after exquisite story. Myths are shattered while new truths are revealed.

The author is clear, and admits she's biased. Mickey is her guy, just as he was our guy. She loved him, and we all loved him, and now many years after his death, we love him even more, and still feel our loss, a loss for a youth that none of us can ever have again. The title of the book says it all, "The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood". How appropriate for a title for this man, and at this time.

We were moving from the age of innocence under Eisenhower into the turbulent world of the 60's with Viet Nam, JFK, Civil Rights, drugs and the counter culture, but through it all, there was the constancy of Mickey Mantle and the Yankees. You either loved him and them, or you hated them. There was nobody on the fence when it came to the Yankees, and it's probably still a true statement today.

Even in those cities that hate the Yankees, no team in baseball filled the stands in enemy territory like the Yankees, and it's all based on the myth and mythology which survives for as long as any of us remember this man and his extraordinary exploits. The most exciting hitter in baseball playing drunk, and with extraordinary pain, and injuries. Nobody knew the real Mickey, maybe no could. We know more about him now through this author and others, than we did when he was setting world of sports on fire.

The book is organized into five parts. The unifying theme is the author meeting Mickey in 1983 at the Claridge Hotel, a casino in Atlantic City. In those days, baseball did not pay like it does today. Although Mickey was paid $100,000 per year by the Yankees for years, very few baseball players saved any money, and basically all of them had to find careers after baseball in order to survive. Late in his life they asked Mickey what he would be paid today if he were in the game. He said, "I don't really know, except I would probably be sitting down with the team owner, and saying, how you doing, PARTNER?"


In each of the five parts of the book, the author continues the story of her meeting Mickey at the Claridge Hotel, and then she reverts back into discussing his biography along chronological lines from his first days in baseball, through his last.

Here's some of the things you will learn in this wonderful book:

* In four quick phrases, you learn the essence of the man. He was so gifted, s flawed, so damaged, so beautiful.
* Admirers were so enamored of Mantle that they were willing to pay anything for memorabilia. Both Billy Crystal the comedian, and David Wells the pitcher got into a bidding war for a damaged glove that Mickey played with. The spirited bidding made Crystal the winner at $239,000. The author has done her homework, and engages the reader in a real and detailed understanding of the collectors' world and how it influenced Mantle, who could make $50,000 in an afternoon signing his name. His near mint rookie card went for $282,000 in 2006.
* Originally a shortstop, legendary manger Casey Stengel said I will personally make this man into a center fielder. DiMaggio went ballistic. It's quite a story and its aftermath went on for years. As was explained in the book, Stengel loved Mantle and disliked DiMaggio.
* Other players could not believe Mantle's abilities. It was said that he was more speed than slugger, and more slugger than any speedster, and nobody had had more of both of them together. Stengel said this kid ain't logical, and he's too good. It's very confusing. When you compared him to others, and the others that came before him, Mantle was unique, and he had the charisma to match. Together it was an unbeatable combination, and then add in a media crazed New York.
* Branch Rickey the general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates who would make history breaking Jackie Robinson into the majors, once said about Mantle, "I hereby agree to pay any price for the purchase of Mickey Mantle."
* It was said about Mantle and his teammates that they lived over the speed limit and being with Mantle was like having a get out of jail card free card. Nobody could play ball like Mickey, and nobody could play like Mickey. The stories, the philandering, the booze, the nightlife, it's all here, and it's here in abundance.
* Mickey was generous to a fault. If you were his friend, you did not need other friends. He was there for you through thick and thin. Teammate Joe Pepitone got divorced. Mickey told him, I got two rooms at the St. Moritz. You come stay with me. Pepitone stayed two years.
* And then there's the naiveté. He's constantly getting conned into putting money into bad deals with bad people. In one deal, his teammates asked him, did you have a lawyer. He responds that he didn't need one, the other guys already had a lawyer in the room.

We haven't even touched upon the game of baseball itself and Mantle's contributions to the game, his impact. Leavy covers it all, and there's much to cover. The World Series where Sandy Koufax, a pitcher who during a five year period was deemed to be unhittable, strikes out Mantle, and then in the seventh inning, Mantle makes contact with what he felt was the fastest pitch he had ever seen. The ferocious noise of the bat making contact with the ball was painful to those sitting in the dugouts, and then the ball wound up in the upper bleachers, but it wasn't enough. In the final inning Koufax would strike out Mantle again, and win the World Series. Mickey goes into the dugout and says, "How in the f---, are you supposed to hit that s---.

You will not put the book down. You will re-live your youth. You will be filled with joy at the thrill of one hero and the world of baseball. You will also find much sorrow in the sadness of life after baseball, of cutting ribbons at gas stations for a thousand dollars, doing bar mitzvahs on weekends, and attempting to live on past glories. What an American story, and only in America could it have happened. Thank you for reading this review, and I gladly give this book five stars.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

At Home: A Short History of Private Life


At Home: A Short History of Private Life
Product By Doubleday         (43 customers reviews)



Technical Details

  • ISBN13: 9780767919388
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Product Description

From one of the most beloved authors of our  time—more than six million copies of his books have been sold in this country alone—a fascinating excursion into the history behind the place we call home.

“Houses aren’t refuges from history. They are where history ends up.”

Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.” The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has fig­ured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.

Bill Bryson has one of the liveliest, most inquisitive minds on the planet, and he is a master at turning the seemingly isolated or mundane fact into an occasion for the most diverting exposi­tion imaginable. His wit and sheer prose fluency make At Home one of the most entertaining books ever written about private life.


Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, October 2010: Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything) turns his attention from science to society in his authoritative history of domesticity, At Home: A Short History of Private Life. While walking through his own home, a former Church of England rectory built in the 19th century, Bryson reconstructs the fascinating history of the household, room by room. With waggish humor and a knack for unearthing the extraordinary stories behind the seemingly commonplace, he examines how everyday items--things like ice, cookbooks, glass windows, and salt and pepper--transformed the way people lived, and how houses evolved around these new commodities. "Houses are really quite odd things," Bryson writes, and, luckily for us, he is a writer who thrives on oddities. He gracefully draws connections between an eclectic array of events that have affected home life, covering everything from the relationship between cholera outbreaks and modern landscaping, to toxic makeup, highly flammable hoopskirts, and other unexpected hazards of fashion. Fans of Bryson's travel writing will find plenty to love here; his keen eye for detail and delightfully wry wit emerge in the most unlikely places, making At Home an engrossing journey through history, without ever leaving the house. --Lynette Mong


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Customer Reviews

  
"At Home...In England" 2010-10-16
By David J. Zussman (Washington DC)
Bill Bryson is a fantastic writer, there is no doubt about it. He is at his best, however, when he tackles academic topics (as in 'At Home' and 'A Short History of Nearly Everything'), as opposed to his more anecdotal writings ('Neither Here Nor There'). Mr. Bryson's real strength lies in his ability to pull the most interesting facts from the most obscure sources, and to string them all together in a not-at-all dull way. This is quite an achievement, given that his subject matter would be horribly boring were it not for his infectious interest in everything he discovers. I doubt any other writer could make me (an adolescent American) remotely interested in 17th century London sewage systems, but Mr. Bryson pulls it off without my being the wiser.

The title is a tad misleading, though Mr. Bryson makes that clear in the opening chapters. While his thoughts do spring from his 19th century rectory, they stray so frequently and completely from the actual home that the book becomes an exploration of England's progress over the past two and a half centuries. A more accurate title might be 'A Brief History of England' or 'Domestic England from 1800-1950'. However, Mr. Bryson's explorations are not unwelcome. Just don't buy this book if you're really looking for insight exclusively into the home.

This book is intelligent, informative, entertaining, and well-researched. Looking at it on my bookshelf makes me lament that more books aren't this clever.

  
"Everything you didn't know you wanted to know..." 2010-10-15
By K. Carroll (Midwest)
I came to Bryson via A Walk in the Woods and was pleasantly surprised. This book, though, is brilliant. It's as though every time this man opens an encyclopedia or turns a stone, a fascinating story emerges. What might have been dry or tedious subject matter for another writer comes to life in Bryson's capable hands. I've just ordered two more of his books!

  
"Always unexpected" 2010-10-15
By V. C. Baker (South Africa)
I agree with other reviewers that this book is not what you would expect from the title - but that is hallmark Bill Bryson. His power to surprise and make us laugh out loud with the neatly turned phrase, the essential oddity of the human condition, the humorous quotes (which in many cases the original author didn't intend to be humorous) is what keeps us coming back for more. We are lucky that Mr Bryson can't seem to make up his mind as to where he wants to live or where his loyalties lie - I last met him in rural New England extolling the virtues at the beginning (if not the end) of the book, of his own country. Now we find him buried deep in the English countryside in a house which seems to be cold, draughty, uncomfortable and inconvenient. Yet his powerful scholarship gives us the best (and the worst)of both countries without fear or favour and always, always makes us laugh as we learn.

  
"A short history of Anglo Saxon conception of private life" 2010-10-14
By Clauser1960 (Roma, Italy)
I have already laughed a lot, from a continental European perspective, on " A short history of nearly everything (from an Anglo Saxon point of view)" and I am certainly not in the mood of starting another subrealistic trip with the new "A short history of (Anglo Saxon) private life". You might wonder why. It is very easy: the simple fact of starting an "History of private life" from an English Victorian mansion makes the book a ridicolously arrogant joke.

Maybe Mr Bryson should take some decent care of what has happened before the British Empire -boom! boom!-(like the Roman Empire, Middle Age and the Reinassance, just for the Western world), which has NOT - I repeat, NOT at all- been completely transpassed to the British or American way of life.

It would be even better if he could correct the title of his books and insert "Anglo Saxon", just to limit the giant explosions of hilarity that his books provoke here in continental Europe.

One name might wake Mr Bryson up: JULIUS CAESAR who, by the way, used to have a fantastic private life, also during his (non turistic) short but intense and constructive period in the Brutish Islands.

  
"Bill Bryson just can't help it. He writes funny, even when he's being serious." 2010-10-13
By Bookreporter.com (New York, New York)
Bill Bryson just can't help it. He writes funny, even when he's being serious, as he is in this latest history of how people have lived over the centuries. This subject could be dry as toast in another author's hands, but with his curious nose buried firmly in historical research while his waggish tongue is planted firmly in cheek, Bryson serves up a rich banquet of utterly fascinating and sometimes horrifying facts of where and how people have slept, eaten, made a living, built homes and monuments, frolicked, traveled, given birth and been laid to rest.

Bryson, who grew up in America's Midwest, has settled with his family into an 1850s vicarage in the Norfolk region of eastern England. The manse, as it would have been called at the time of construction, was typical of parsonages in an age when the local vicar was customarily the son from a wealthy family, chosen by his father to enter the clergy. Most of us, by virtue of Jane Austen and other authors of the day, are aware of the arcane social hierarchy of 19th-century England. These customs are but one of many that Bryson explores to provide a vivid and often humorous history of civilization. AT HOME is much more than a story of British living, however. Bryson uses his historic home as a focal point to examine and describe, under his penetrating and amused eye, how humans of all cultures have adapted, evolved and comported themselves throughout our complicated history.

Bryson's examination of food preparation and ways to determine which are edible and which will kill you is as fascinating as it is hilarious and horrifying. You can imagine how far-reaching those skills have become, leading to discoveries in food preservation, plants that cure disease, discovery of germs, even theories about what caused the witchcraft scare of the 1690s.

Did you know that parks weren't created for leisurely strolls, ball games and picnics? Parks arose from a need to find ways to deal with the overflow of bodies buried, usually several coffins deep, causing hideous, sometimes lethal gases and growing mounds in the church yards and small, designated areas in large cities. Some bright fellow decided that if you buried bodies in large, unused open spaces and planted trees around them, nature would take its course, help the trees and lawns (another result of graveyards) to flourish, and the ghastly situation would be resolved.

As people were attracted to these open vistas of trees and grass and started strolling and picnicking amongst the gravestones, parks were born. This in turn launched a several-decades-long search of the planet for exotic botanical specimens to bring back to adorn the landscape, which included the expedition of the famous Beagle --- the ship that bore Charles Darwin to the South Seas and his famous discovery that changed how we looked at our existence. It also created a career called landscape architecture, which led to... This is how the book goes --- one thing leads to another.

And fashion. We vain, silly humans go to great lengths and physical discomfort to adorn ourselves. One look at the current piercings and tattoos and women staggering about on five-inch stiletto heels shouldn't surprise us that in the 18th and 19th centuries, the attempts to glorify our bodies could prove lethal. Men and women alike painted their faces with lead-based paints, resulting in death and permanent disfigurement. They corseted themselves (men, too) into punctured lungs, broken ribs, congestive heart failure and miscarriages, all for the sake of vanity. It was not uncommon for wigs, which were seldom removed even for sleep, to catch fire and disfigure or even kill the wearer. Voluminous petticoats proved not only ungainly, but a fire hazard if the wearer backed too close to an open grate. A decade of decadence was celebrated by admirers of fashion maven Beau Brummel, who attracted a daily audience that included the Prince of Wales, three dukes, a marquess, two earls and other lucky "dandies" who assembled in his dressing room to watch him bathe, dress and ready himself for a day of...well, looking utterly smashing. There are no records that he did anything else. At least Lady Gaga sings for a living.

Upon reading this delightful and fascinating book, one wonders if experience is such a great teacher as we watch our progress from the cave to our comfy, sanitary surroundings. Bryson muses that perhaps future generations will find us as comical and confusing as we see our forebears.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Assholes Finish First


Assholes Finish First
Product By Gallery        (21 customers reviews)
Lowest Price : $13.48 

Product Description

Assholes Finish First is Tucker Max's deliciously dirty collection of twenty-five true tales of sex, girls, and wildly entertaining depravity.

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Customer Reviews


"A complete disappointment" 2010-10-17
By noone
I was expectting more. Maybe I got old since the last book? I don't know, I had an extra year for the anticipation to build for the sequel, since TUCKER was too busy putting together that "POS" movie. The first book was completely believeable, this one? Come on, it's over the top. It's like a guy who is not cool telling stories as if he was. Take the "gimp" for instance, put pictures in your book? I question if there is any validity to "either" book after reading this $#!^.

  
"Jumped the Shark" 2010-10-15
By Stressarella
I'd say I'm pretty disappointed as by comparison to IHTSBIH, which had me laughing out loud on a 4 hour flight and was quite possibly the best humorous read I'd ever had. I had tears rolling down my face and could hardly talk to my husband reading passages to him inflight from IHTSBIH. This follow up, was a disappointment by comparison. I hardly broke a chuckle and I really expected much more. This was despite having read the first chapter free via my kindle. I guess I hoped it would get better and funnier and never really did.


"Good Follow-up" 2010-10-15
By R. Aikens (Fairbanks, AK)
If you like "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell," you will like this. His writing is a lot smoother and the stories are a lot more polished. In his first book, it was truly a collection of emails. This time around, you can see the editing and the stories are actually a lot easier to visualize.

I found the book very funny, though it does not stray too far from his first book. If you have not read Tucker Max (and you have an idea of what he writes about), I highly recommend this. If you read his first book and enjoyed it, this is a must read as well. I do recommend you get a taste of his content or you will really be shocked when you read this.

This is very similar to Beer in Hell, but the stories are different (but along the same goals). I laughed really hard at parts of this, but rate it 4 stars because it just doesn't build much on his previous efforts. I imagine he will start writing political stuff next, which should be very funny to read.

  
"Simply not as Good as his first (And I wanted it to be...)" 2010-10-13
By SeriouslyNo
I stumbled onto TM's first book at an airport, stood there reading and laughing and then bought it and read it cover to cover on vacation at the pool, chuckling out loud throughout. IHTSBIH was hilarious, and there's no doubt Tucker is a great writer. The stories, whether they're really as 'true' as he insisted they are, were funny regardless, especially combined with his articulate use of wit ("Hilarity does not ensue"). Assholes Finish First has more of the same themes (but of course, right?) yet somehow did not read as witty or laugh out loud funny this time around. And thinking about it, I'm not really sure why that is. Perhaps it seemed like he was a natural asshole in the first book, and this time it read more 'forced'? I don't know, I really wanted to laugh my ass off but found myself skipping over a lot of it instead. The best part of the book for me was his Post-Fame section; it's interesting to see what happens to anyone who reaches a level of fame, let alone an asshole like TM. But look - who am I kidding, if you're 23 yrs old and you liked the first book, you'll probably like this one too. But to me, this felt like going out and getting the new Maroon 5 album: I've heard it all before, and in this case, I laughed harder before...

  
"Tucker's back!" 2010-10-13
By Clubber Lang (Los angeles, ca)
Wasn't a fan of the other book as much as I am of this one. Anyone can fall into some stories during college, but it takes a true genius to do some of this stuff 15 years later! Never read a book like this and it SO lightens my day!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Half Empty


Half Empty
Product By Doubleday      (9 customers reviews)
Lowest Price : $14.95 

Technical Details

  • ISBN13: 9780385525244
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Product Description

The inimitably witty David Rakoff, New York Times bestselling author of Don’t Get Too Comfortable, defends the commonsensical notion that you should always assume the worst, because you’ll never be disappointed.

In this deeply funny (and, no kidding, wise and poignant) book, Rakoff examines the realities of our sunny,  gosh­ everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, pretty much as a universal rule, the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won’t come true.

The book ranges from the personal to the universal, combining stories from Rakoff’s reporting and accounts of his own experi­ences: the moment when being a tiny child no longer meant adults found him charming but instead meant other children found him a fun target; the perfect late evening in Manhattan when he was young and the city seemed to brim with such pos­sibility that the street shimmered in the moonlight—as he drew closer he realized the streets actually flickered with rats in a feeding frenzy. He also weaves in his usual brand Oscar Wilde–worthy cultural criticism (the tragedy of Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, for instance).

Whether he’s lacerating the musical Rent for its cutesy depic­tion of AIDS or dealing with personal tragedy, his sharp obser­vations and humorist’s flair for the absurd will have you positively reveling in the power of negativity.

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Customer Reviews

  
"Cynical essays with no unifying theme" 2010-10-14
By Silea (Portland, OR)
The cover material of this volume suggests that it's some sort of intellectual investigation into pessimism, with the result that it's a more practical approach to life than optimism. The first essay will keep leading you down that path as well, with the story of the author's almost-article on a book about the possible benefits of pessimism.

From there, though, it's a series of unconnected autobiographical essays about life, the universe, and everything. The author is clearly a pessimist and a cynic, and it shines through in his writing, but that's the length this collection goes to in the direct discussion of pessimism. There's no defense of it as an approach to life, nor even any pretense of it.

The essays themselves range from mediocre to fairly amusing (if you're a pessimistic cynic too), though they're often weighed down by the author's clear infatuation with his own wordcraft. If you want to read about Mr. Rakoff saying witty things, eating pork, and mocking many aspects of modern culture, you'll enjoy this book. Just don't be mislead by the odd pretense of it being anything but a collection of essays with no unifying theme.


  
"You Have to Love Rakoff" 2010-10-03
By Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas)
Rakoff, David. "Half Empty", Doubleday, 2010.
You Have to Love Rakoff
Amos Lassen


How often do we read morbid essays that make us feel good?--certainly not often enough. If that is the case with you, rush out and get a copy of "Half Empty" and see that the world is going to hell but you will be laughing on the way there. Rakoff is the naysayer in this collection of sardonic wit and he touches on a variety of topics with really wry wit. The essays are pessimistic and funny at the same time as he breaks down the theory of positive thinking. He analyzes popular culture with a keen eye and brings bad judgment and disaster to us in his satiric way. He strips society bare and we laugh at the skeleton. And what a vocabulary the man has! He can build a story and make us love it which in itself is no small thing.

The book includes from the personal to the universal and gives it to us like a slap across the face. His humor is biting and poignant at the same time. The book is made up of and begins with "The Bleak Shall Inherit," that looks at optimism. "Isn't It Romantic?" is about the Broadway hit "Rent" and is the best written essay in the book as well as the funniest and it is about the death of the show's creator. In "A Capacity for Wonder," the author takes us on a trip to the Disney Innoventions Dream House, Hollywood Boulevard, and Salt Lake City, Utah. "All the Time We Have" and "Another Shoe" both deal with serious topics--one deals with the death of Rakoff's therapist while the other deals with his cancer. "The Satisfying Crunch of Dreams Underfoot," is about Raskoff's shot at being a movie star.

Sure these topics do not look particularly appealing but what makes this book is the way Rakoff writes. He says so much is such a beautiful way that is highly possible to miss things. He also tells us about things we do not know. I love Rakoff's contraryism and this is what makes reading him so much fun.

Because Rakoff's writing style is so dense, many will not like it but for me it is perfect. I have always felt that a writer who makes me think is who I want to read. If there is nothing new to be gleaned from reading then why should we bother? It is not such a terrible thing to have to have to read something more than once? That is what says to me that there is either something profound or ridiculous or both.

As dark as some of the humor is, Rakoff never really turns on his total ability for sarcasm and what is here includes a bit of compassion for the human condition. I found myself wishing and hoping that the world will stay as insane as it already is and that Rakoff will be the one to write about it.


  
"An envigorating breath of stale air" 2010-10-01
By J. W. Kennedy (Richmond, VA United States)
This is a collection of essays, none of which are related to each other in any significant way. Topics range from Disneyland to Germany to the publishing business to "adult entertainment" trade shows to cancer survival, all generously interleaved with the author's personal memoirs and confessions. The essays are short; the book is short (225 pages in my copy) which makes for a quick read. Bite-size portions make it handy for reading on the go - or in the bathroom, etc, wherever time is limited and you don't want to get absorbed in a plot or have to remember details.

Like the publisher's blurb says, these essays focus mainly on the negative: low self-esteem, low expectations, worst-case scenarios, fear, humiliation, bad judgment, failure. David Rakoff makes no mystery of the fact that he is gay, Jewish, a worrywart, a phobic, a procrastinator, a nebbish. In spite of his awareness of his own bad judgment, he still chooses to write in the first person & share loads of personal information about himself. At least he's honest.

And that's the appeal of this book. It's honest. No attempt has been made to sugar-coat anything. Instead, here is encouragement to let drop the scales from one's eyes, and see things as they are. Instead of saying "I'm OK, You're OK," David Rakoff encourages us to recognize the truth that probably neither one of us is OK. Everybody can't be a winner. Somebody has to lose - and losing can actually be a valuable experience. There's a sardonic humor in observing the sad, pathetic side of modern life (especially the way Rakoff writes it) and I found myself not only agreeing, but chuckling - even occasionally guffawing - many times as I read this brief little book. It's extremely rare for me to laugh out loud at something I read.

  
"Grab a dictionary and enjoy the ride!" 2010-09-29
By M. Niesen (North Georgia Mts)
Listen. This isn't an easy read, a beach read or necessarily a page turner for the average bear. BUT it's really great. I laughed so hard in a few bits at such brilliant twists of phrase that I had to put the book down and collect myself. If you like the dry and the sardonic this is for you.

I love David Rakoff's work and have had this book preordered for a long time. I have both Fraud and Don't Get Too Comfortable as audio books and in print and have been jittery with anticipation for something else from the essayist. It's dark, sure. But I think that bodes well for the times. If you haven't noticed the ridiculous at every corner, take a ride with a practiced eye for picking up on details that the average miss.

There are no "good" chapters and "bad" as some folk have posted here. Some will appeal and some will appeal more. This is not formulaic writing and as such you may get tongue tied in a couple ramblers. And he's no simpleton with the word crafting. But grab a dictionary and enjoy. In a society filled with LOL and OMG, I find Rakoff's high minded humor at the absurd to be refreshing.

  
""Unlike cooking... writing is closer to having to reverse-engineer a meal out of rotten food."" 2010-09-23
By M. E. Llorens (Miami FL)
My first acquaintance with Rakoff's work was hearing him on "This American Life" recite a hilarious take on William Carlos Williams's "This is Just to Say" in his Bond-villain voice. I thought it was delightful and brilliant, but failed to read any further until this book came along. "Half Empty" gives you the opportunity to tag along and listen to this master pessimist as he winds his way through post-lapsarian America. During the brief hours you spend with this book, Rakoff, alternatively fascinated and appalled, trains his relentless sarcastic searchlight on subjects as diverse as American optimism, the difficulties of writing and cancer, and also visits Southern California, Utah and Walt Disney World's Innoventions Dream Home.

If the book tends towards the darker tonalities of the spectrum, you somehow feel that Rakoff never really turns on the full power of his sarcasm, which is tempered throughout by a compassion for the shared human condition. There is, for one thing, the self-deprecation that includes this description of himself as "possessed of a certain verbal acuity coupled with a relentless, hair-trigger humor and surface cheer spackling over a chronic melancholia and loneliness," which serves as a pretty accurate approximation of the experience of reading his work. There is also the knowledge of our own mortality and the suspicion that perhaps others have to be perpetual optimists for the temperamentally pessimistic to enjoy certain human achievements: "If one's dreams having to come true was the only referendum on whether they were beautiful, or worth dreaming, well then, no one would wish for anything. And that would be so much sadder." While you may deplore the same things he deplores, you end up hoping the world remains as crazy and nonsensical as it is so that the author can continue to reverse-engineer his delectable writing.

Monday, October 25, 2010

The Roots of Obama's Rage


The Roots of Obama's Rage
Product By Regnery Press        (136 customers reviews)
Lowest Price : $13.75 

Technical Details

  • ISBN13: 9781596986251
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Product Description


“Stunning...the most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.” —NEWT GINGRICH

The Roots of Obama’s Rage reveals Obama for who he really is: a man driven by the anti-colonial ideology of his father and the first American president to actually seek to reduce America's strength, influence, and standard of living. Controversial and compelling, The Roots of Obama’s Rage is poised to be the one book that truly defines Obama and his presidency.

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Customer Reviews

  
"so scary" 2010-10-16
By Carlos Novela (Miami, FL USA)
This is the most powerful book I have read ever. It lays bare a truth so chilling as to be scary. And yet I say this to you. We should all learn the truth and why it is so.

Hope those of you who read it gain a deeper understanding of the man who is destroying america. Yeah, and of his reasons. I now understand so much that before made no sense. Truly, I fear for america.

  
"You Must Read This Page-Turner; It Is Spell-Binding" 2010-10-16
By Nancy Hicks
In general I avoid "political" books; I fear the animus I may encounter. No animus in this book. It was very entertaining; reads like a novel. And so surprisingly, deeply informative (loaded with footnotes). The author writes with such candor and openness and it flows. It closes with such promise for this nation and for all nations as well. No matter your political allegiance, do yourself a favor and read this book - read all the way through. You will have a new understanding . . .

  
"Obamas Rage" 2010-10-16
By Oceansail34
The book is well written and offers a plausible theory for the seemingly unexplainable actions of Obama. While many attribute the actions to a socialist or Marxist ideology, this book offers a better insight... probably true. While I enjoyed it immensely, it does bog down in the middle with endless explanations of Obama's attraction to his drunken father. Go for it. It is a good read.


"Now it makes sense!" 2010-10-14
By Patricia Weir (Glen Carbon, IL USA)
I have read numerous books and articles about Barack Hussein Obama since he hit the national stage. I live in Illinois and am acutely aware of his aggressive proabortion/infanticide and far left policies. Once elected to the Big House, he brought his community organizing skills in an effort to "fundamentally transform" our once great nation. Neither I nor my family and friends could understand what drives this man to deconstruct the greatest nation on God's green earth. Finally, Dinsh D'Souza has advanced a plausible theory and I believe it fits perfectly. Mr. D'Souza is brilliant and brings reason and history to his thesis. Mr. D'Souza is a national treasure. If you want to understand Obama's motivation, I think you'll find some enlightenment here.

  
"Nicely Done!" 2010-10-14
By H. Geschichtemann (Florida, USA)
As a young student, I read Frantz Fanon, heard Kwame Nkrumah and Jawaharlal Nehru. I read about the Mau Mau. I studied Soviet involvement in the anticolonial movement from Lenin to Brezhnev - including their side-adventures in Africa via such institutions as Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow.

During the 2008 campaign, I read both of Obama's books. I came to pretty much the same conclusion that D'Souza has. If one pays attention to Obama's own words, it is hard to reach a different conclusion. To do so one would have to know nothing about the political climate of the 1950's and 1960's that shaped his father, Barack Obama Sr. One would have to discount Obama's own claims that he finally found his identity as a Luo tribesman in Kenya. One would have to likewise dismiss his obvious and often-repeated preoccupation with the heroic father who deserted him. "Dreams From My Father" is a treasure-trove of keys to Obama's psyche.

If nothing else, the return of the Churchill bust - a senseless slap in the face of an often-essential ally - lit up the landscape like a giant flare to anyone who knew anything about Obama's Kenya connection and about Churchill. The bust was a gift from the British people after 9/11 intended to evoke on behalf of the United States Churchill's spirit of undying resistance to Germany in World War II, but to Obama the bust represented merely the old bull of the British Empire that dominated Kenya during Obama Sr.'s lifetime. As a mindset, I suppose it is understandable, but would Americans knowingly put somebody whose head was in such a place into the Oval Office, let alone someone who could reasonably be demonstrated to have the reduction of American power and influence as a prime goal of his existence?

D'Souza has done an excellent service by laying out the case so clearly and compellingly. His own position as a son of British India, gives him not only a unique insight but also considerable "street creds" on the issue.

The only pertinent information that D'Souza has neglected is the extent to which President Obama has been and continues to be personally involved in the internal politics of Kenya. Obama actively supported - before, during, and after the 2008 presidential campaign -- his cousin. the Islamizing Raila Odinga, in his successful quest to be prime minister of Kenya. Subsequently he enlisted the Department of State to support Odinga's proposed sharia-friendly constitution for Kenya. He even sent Vice-president Joe Biden personally to Kenya to support the new Odinga constitution. It is a breath-taking admission of divided allegiances!

It is not an invalid exercise to wonder whether Obama's ultimate loyalties lie with his mother's homeland or with his father's Kenya?

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth


Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth
Product By Amulet Books
Lowest Price : $7.67


Product Description

Greg Heffley has always been in a hurry to grow up. But is getting older really all it’s cracked up to be?

Greg suddenly finds himself dealing with the pressures of boy-girl parties, increased responsibilities, and even the awkward changes that come with getting older—all without his best friend, Rowley, at his side. Can Greg make it through on his own? Or will he have to face the “ugly truth”?

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Saturday, October 23, 2010

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary


Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary
Product By Little, Brown and Company       (62 customers reviews)
Lowest Price : $8.44 

Technical Details

  • hardback
  • David Sedaris
  • Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk
  • 0316038393

Product Description

Featuring David Sedaris's unique blend of hilarity and heart, this new collection of keen-eyed animal-themed tales is an utter delight. Though the characters may not be human, the situations in these stories bear an uncanny resemblance to the insanity of everyday life.

In "The Toad, the Turtle, and the Duck," three strangers commiserate about animal bureaucracy while waiting in a complaint line. In "Hello Kitty," a cynical feline struggles to sit through his prison-mandated AA meetings. In "The Squirrel and the Chipmunk," a pair of star-crossed lovers is separated by prejudiced family members.

With original illustrations by Ian Falconer, author of the bestselling Olivia series of children's books, these stories are David Sedaris at his most observant, poignant, and surprising.

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Customer Reviews

  
"Squirrel seeks Laughter" 2010-10-16
By David J. Zussman (Washington DC)
I've read most of David Sedaris' writings. This one is different. If you are looking for his funny anecdotes and personal tales, then this is the wrong book for you (let me suggest 'Me Talk Pretty One Day', one of Sedaris' funnier collection of essays). If you just love his style of writing, then you will still enjoy 'squirrel seeks chipmunk'. The writing is pure Sedaris, written in a humorous way, but without the punch lines I've come to expect from his other novels. Really, it is the format of this book that keeps him from chasing the usual laugh. As a bestiary, this book is like Aesop's fables, but without the morals. Or rather, the stories have morals, but they aren't clear cut. Perhaps this is for the better. A lack of real lessons makes the stories more realistic and thought-provoking than they might otherwise have been. The brevity of each story is also welcome. I found myself finishing the book in an afternoon.

This book is worth buying, but it is not the share-it-with-your-friends, laugh-out-loud sort of compilation I have come to expect from Sedaris. If you haven't read Sedaris yet, this isn't the place to start.


"Very strange .." 2010-10-15
By K. Orvis (Pasadena, California United States)
This is not at all what I expected .. I thought it would be wry and funny, or at least amusing. Instead, it's a very strange compilation of weird and often brutal tales of anthropomorphic animals behaving in beastial ways that indeed reflect the worst of human nature. I must say that I am not enjoying this work at all. The best I can say is that I'm glad I'm listening to it on an audio-book; the readers are excellent. There'd be no saving grace at all if I were simply reading these unappealing tales.

  
"If Asked, Even a Skunk May Reply, "So Sorry to Say it Stinks, Sedaris."" 2010-10-15
By M. Nichols (West Chester, OH United States)
I love - LOVE - every book David Sedaris has published previous to this one. We keep a set of his CDs on hand for long trips and any contribution he makes to "This American Life" always seems to be the high point of the program. So, with no hesitation whatsoever, I grabbed "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" as soon as I saw it on the shelf.

I got halfway through. This is a book I would guess you could finish in under 90 minutes. Maybe the second half redeems the first. What I got through were a number of sad, dark and disgusting tales (and this is coming from someone who found the early Sedaris story, "Big Boy," to be an absolute hoot). Depressing, dejected and ugly animals living out very human conversations and activities (and it is worth noting that Falconer's illustrations are, perhaps appropriately, as unappealling as the stories they accompany). A set of fables turning a mirror on ourselves? Perhaps. Art? Maybe. Enjoyable entertainment? Not at all.

It is close-minded and selfish of me to expect Sedaris - or any author - to continue to churn out sameness tome after tome. That said, with each author one follows comes a flavor that after several books one has grown to enjoy and expect, albeit with variations, each time a new volume is served. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, however, is simply downright rotten.

  
"misunderstood....." 2010-10-15
By lokey (Chicago, IL United States)
I read this book quickly and found each little morsel to be more twisted than the next. I saw him speak last time he was in Chicago and he read samples of some of these stories that went over great with the crowd. The low star reviews are confusing to me; what don't you get? He's transposing all the human issues we deal with on a daily basis to the animal world, where it's a bit more violent...and real. Mr. Sedaris is a riot and I could immediately relate to the ideas he wrote about. Open your mind and you may as well. And, about kids reading his books... really?

  
"Sorry Mr.Sedaris this book stinks!" 2010-10-14
By Addicted to Kindle!!!
Love David Sedaris! BUT, this book is just plain wierd and stupid. If you are a Sedaris fan you will most likely be very disappointed with this book.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Call Me Mrs. Miracle



Call Me Mrs. Miracle
Product By Mira       (11 customers reviews)
Lowest Price : $5.92 

Technical Details

  • ISBN13: 9780778328193
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Product Description

This Christmas, Emily Merkle (call her Mrs. Miracle!) is working in the toy department at Finley's, the last family-owned department store in New York City. And her boss is none other than…Jake Finley, the owner's son.For Jake, holiday memories of brightly wrapped gifts, decorated trees and family were destroyed in a Christmas Eve tragedy years before. Now Christmas means just one thing to him—and to his father. Profit. Because they need a Christmas miracle to keep the business afloat.
Holly Larson needs a miracle, too. She wants to give her eight-year-old nephew, Gabe, the holiday he deserves. Holly's widowed brother is in the army and won't be home for Christmas, but at least she can get Gabe that toy robot from Finley's, the one gift he desperately wants. If she can figure out how to afford it…
Fortunately, it's Mrs. Miracle to the rescue. Next to making children happy, she likes nothing better than helping others—and that includes doing a bit of matchmaking!
This Christmas will be different. For all of them.


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Customer Reviews

  
"Debbie Macomber" 2010-10-16
By Sheri L. Custer (Greencastle, PA)
I just finished this book and can't wait for the movie. I enjoyed Doris Roberts as Mrs. Miracle in the first movie and hope she's casted in this one. I believe the movie is due out in December 2010. Great book and brings smiles to my heart.

  
"A Joyful Christmastime Story!" 2010-10-10
By Books4Betty
Nothing puts me in the Christmas spirit more than snuggling up with a warm blanket and a good book. This Christmas, and every Christmas after, I plan on snuggling up with this gem of a book. Call Me Mrs. Miracle is the sequel to the hit Mrs. Miracle written by Debbie Macomber, and I highly recommend this to all readers.

As a book reviewer I often get a book weeks before it is released to the stores to sell, so with that being said, I was given an advanced copy of Call Me Mrs. Miracle during the Summer, and to say I was not in the "spirit" to read a Christmas book is true; however, once I picked it up, I could not put this book down. I was enveloped by my imaginary snuggly blanket, sipping hot cocoa, and enjoying all the pleasures the holiday season brings with it. Macomber has an eloquent craft of placing readers in her books. With every page that I turned, I felt like I was right there with these characters. This is an attribute I look for in every (and all) books I read. Macomber received high marks in my books for this.

Jake Finley and Holly Larson are both in need of holiday miracles, and who better to grant them than Emily Merkle? Emily Merkle, whose name is cleverly mistaken for Miracle, works her magic once again in this book. Call Me Mrs. Miracle begins with Jake Finely, the young son of J.R. Finley, over estimating Finley's toy stock. He ordered hundreds of the toy robot called: Intellytron the SuperRobot (or just Telly for short) and is under immense pressure to sell them all by Christmas Eve. J.R. is none-too-pleased with his son's actions and threatens to fire Jake if all of the robots are not sold.

Holly Larson, the young fashion assistant and now step-in mother to her eight-year-old nephew Gabe, is strapped for cash and desperate to provide Gabe with a wonderful Christmas. Holly's brother Mickey, as the readers learn, was sent out on a fifteen-month deployment to Afghanistan with the National Guard. Not only is Holly's brother absent for the Holiday's, so are her parents, leaving Holly, alone, to take care of her young nephew. Call Me Mrs. Miracle begins with Holly and Gabe's strained relationship turning for the better. She is relieved she and Gabe are on better terms, and therefore, she is determined to provide him with a Christmas he'll never forget.

Where does Mrs. Miracle fit in? Well, Emily is Finley's new sales assistant. Who at one point has not dreamed of working in a toy store? I think it would be great fun to be able to play with toys all day! I will not give any details away from this point on, but I will say Jake, Holly, and Gabe become very close because of Mrs. Miracle and her involvement with the toy department. Gabe's one wish is to get a Telly for Christmas and he more than once finds himself, and his aunt, at Finley's.

Macomber has written a lovely Christmas story! I love how descriptive she was with New York City and Christmastime. I, myself, have never been to New York and through Macomber's writing, I felt as if I was riding in a carriage, taking in the decorations, or snacking on roasted chestnuts. I may have sighed in awe a few times through these sections. Bravo to Macomber!

To conclude, I wanted to give Call Me Mrs. Miracle a 5 star rating, however, I felt as if the last chapter was rushed and felt as if it could have been a little bit longer. Although there was one minor hiccup, Macomber wrote a fantastic Christmastime book and I highly recommended it be read, and then read again each year that follows.

  
"I Loved This Book" 2010-10-10
By Jan Comsky
I read all of the Debbie Macomber Christmas/Romantic Comedies every year, and this was one of her best stories. I finished reading this book about 4/5 days ago, and the characters (plus the wonderful ending to the book) are still with me. I hope that this book will be made into a Hallmark Movie. I loved every minute of this book. Thank you Debbie!


"ANOTHER FEEL GOOD STORY" 2010-10-09
By ITZME (Dallas, TX)
Another "feel good" book from Debbie Macomber. This is the second in the Mrs. Miracle grouping. Mickey Larson has gone to Afghanistan, his wife is deceased and he leaves his son Gabe with his sister Holly. Holly works for a designer Lindy Lee and is having a hard time making ends meet with another mouth to feed. She meets Jake Finley while getting her morning coffee at a nearby shop. Jake's family owns a very large department store where Mrs. Miracle is working as seasonal help in the toy department. And all ends well.

  
"Movie on in November on Hallmark!" 2010-10-08
By Laurie
This was another wonderful Christmas Story and I can't wait to see the movie coming out on Nov 27 on the Hallmark Channel. Last years Mrs Miracle book and movie were delightful and fun to watch. Doris Roberts is coming back as Mrs Miracle again for this one and I'm sure it will be just as great as the book. If you haven't read this one yet... Please Hurry.. This is a book worth the money!