Mango Ice Cream

Book Description

In these stories from Anna Anthony's Mango Ice Cream, love and sorrow, pain and the sweetness of forgiveness, tradition and the lure of MTV mingle in the lives of people in villages and towns of Kerala, India. Here, late in the 20th century, live Roshini and her husband John. Roshini and John struggle over John's desire to set up an ashram in rural India and Roshini's desire to lead a nice, normal life. Asha, who lives in the village of Chavakkadu, believes that her salvation lies in an arranged marriage to someone/anyone with a job in USA. In the nearby city of Kochi, fifteen-year-old Angelique is terrified to discover herself pregnant; another teenager growing up in the same town as the apple of her father's eye is devastated to discover her mother's adultery. The teenagers discover that sometimes forgiveness is the only option in the face of irreversible actions and unforgivable things.

YoCream partners with Red Mango.: An article from: Ice Cream Reporter

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YoCream partners with Red Mango.: An article from: Ice Cream Reporter
Gale Reference Team
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000WMIKXU
Release Date: 2007-09-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Ice Cream Reporter, published by Thomson Gale on September 20, 2007. The length of the article is 724 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: YoCream partners with Red Mango.
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication: Ice Cream Reporter (Newsletter)
Date: September 20, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 20 Issue: 10 Page: 1(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Moemi has real emotional scars from the near rape she suffered; can she trust again? And Ai has arranged with her creator to make a man fall in love with her or she'll be permanently erased. With Yota focused on Moemi, Ai's days are numbered.

Customer Reviews:

MOEMI OFFERS HER BODY....AGAIN.......2006-12-30

Moemi is prepared to lay it all on the line as she offers her body up to Yota but he keeps on seeing this vision of a faceless short haired girl telling him that he had finally made his "choice". He believes that this girl he is seeing is Ai and that no matter what his feelings or desires, he musn't go any further with Moemi and that he has to break up with her. He decides to focus exclusively on Ai, even though he can't tell her that he overheard her creator say that if a man could fall in love with Ai, he would make her human. He thinks if he tells her, then the deal would be off. Even as Yota breaks up with her, Moemi decides once again that she's not going down without a fight. Ai, meanwhile, doesn't believe Yota's statements that he doesn't want to be with Moemi. All the time this is going on, Ai's tape continues to run, and her time on Earth continues to run out. As you can see, things are in a mess, but with only a few volumes left in the series, Katsura's gonna have to bring things to an end.

Video Girl Ai is a manga that has gone on about 10 too many volumes. We've been pretty much stuck in stasis now for about five or six volumes with Yota going out with Moemi but still finding his mind drifting to Ai and telling himself it's only because he doesn't want her to disappear. Speaking of memory loss, has Yota completely forgotten how much he loved Ai in the first couple of volumes, and how he went to Hell to rescue her, quite literally? His feelings for Moemi have always seemed a bit more like desire or lust instead of true love, but he's been kidding himself for hundreds or even thousands of pages now that she's the one he loves. The characters are all stuck in emotional limbo, not because of their personalities, but because the writer wants to drag on the story longer than neccesary and make a few bucks more from the concept. It's a real shame because in the volumes that didn't have a lot fluff (which was about 5 out of 12 so far), the story really shined and was very compelling.

SAYING GOODBYE.......2006-12-02

Yota's deadline for submitting artwork for the children's book he's working on is tomorrow, but he feels it won't be up to snuff unless Ai is helping him out with the coloring. Which is probably true since there's always an aspect of being lost surrounding Yota when Ai isn't around. He's also still trying to work out who he really loves. Is Moemi just a consolation prize because he didn't want to get involved with Ai, who he knew was always destined to disappear eventually? But now he knows that Ai can become a real girl if a human falls in love with her so what's stopping him now? I'll tell you. He's a wuss! Meanwhile, his childhood friend Natsumi is laid up dying in a hospital and Ai has made it her mission to find the boyfriend that dumped her and caused her to come to Tokyo in the first place.

Video Girl Ai is suffused with too many characters that are afraid of rocking the boat, so they all just tend to wallow in misery. Yota is afraid to hurt Moemi's feelings by dumping her and going for Ai, while Ai is waiting for Yota to choose herself as the one he loves and get the courage to break up with Moemi. Natsumi has given up on seeing the guy she loves again. The only character that seems to be doing anything to improve her situation is Moemi. At least she hasn't given up on Yota and pursues him passionately even though she perhaps doesn't use the best methods. Video Girl Ai is probably a series that has gone on too long but it's still entertaining if frustrating to read. The side story with Natsumi's boyfriend was actually more intriguing than the main storyline. Still an ok read.

MOEMI TITILATES.......2006-10-10

Ai's time in this world is down to about a month. In that time she must get a human to fall in love with her. If she can, she will become human. If she doesn't, her tape will be erased and her existence will cease. Of course, she's in love with Yota but in his conscious mind he's moved on and now he's getting in deeper with Moemi. Unfortunately, his unconscious mind still dwells on Ai, which makes Moemi jealous and causes her to start devising ways to take his mind off Ai. As Ai lives a life on the street, Moemi uses her body to try to win Yota's heart, even as Yota finds out he needs Ai to help him on his first big break in the children's book illustration world.

I'm pretty much sick of Yota by this point in the series. He's become so callous to the girls around him, letting Ai and Natsumi live like vagrants in city parks and alleyways in the cold. Does he think homeless people have it so good as he lives alone in his sprawling palacial residence? Yeah, he tries looking for Ai a bit, but he doesn't try that hard, and this is the guy that went through all sorts of mental and spiritual torture to rescue Ai early in this series. He forced himself to forget about her after she lost her memories but it just seemed too easy back then and now it seems even more ludicrous. No matter how Video Girl Ai ends up, I feel I'm going to be dissatisfied. To me, the strongest part of this series was when it focused on the interactions between Ai and Yota, and that has been missing for many volumes. In Volume 9, the writer went back to this core, but in Volume 10 we go back to the whole Yota/Ai/Moemi conflict with all its resulting stagnation. What a shame. I would have given this 3 stars but Katsura's passionate eroticism and extraordinary art gave it a bit more power. Also, the characters of Ai and Moemi steal the show and give Volume 10 a much needed energy.

AI GETS HER MEMORY BACK.......2006-08-21

In Volume 9 of Video Girl Ai: Cut Scenes, Ai finally gets all her memories back of her love for Yota. She kinda already suspected that in her past life she was in love with him, but now all her suspicions are confirmed and she's in a bind as to what to do with them because Yota is finally realizing his dream of being Moemi's boyfriend. Ai doesn't want to ruin anything that could develop between the two, but not only does she have to fight against her own selfish desires for Yota, her tape is rapidly running out of time. Her creator had given her additional playing time and even said he would make her human IF she could make a man fall in love with her. Perhaps getting to work one-on-one with Yota as she helps him finish a submission for a children's book contest might give her the oppurtunity to grow close to him again.

Volume 9 was one of the more enjoyable installments of this series because we get back to the root conflict that started it all. Namely, the fact that Ai, instead of helping Yota get the girl of his dreams, falls in love with him instead and complicates the whole situation. I always felt a little uncomfortable with the amnesiac Ai and was glad to see her go back to her old self. Without her presence, Yota had become a playboy jerk whose affections were pretty much blowing in the wind. I'm really curious as to how it will end. It's too bad it took about 5 volumes to get back to the main plotline instead of dwelling in shojoesque relationships without any advancement of plot.

DO DREAMS COME TRUE?.......2006-07-07

Volume 8 of Video Girl Ai is called Flashback because Yota plans to replay a scene from his life that he didn't get right the first time. Early on in this series, Yota was alone with his crush Moemi and was going to declare his love for her, but instead he found out that she was in love with his best friend Takashi! Now he's taking her back to the same place, with the same plan to declare his love for her, but this time he's going to get it right! The problem is that nothing has changed. Moemi still cares for Takashi, and even thinks he saved her from getting raped, when it was actually Yota that saved her. There is even some implication that Takashi was actually the one that put her in that situation but the author is not exactly clear since Takashi still hasn't come clean about that night. But most of the girls at school are spreading the rumor it was him that set her up. When Moemi finds out the truth, what will she do? And Ai's life is still ticking away. If she doesn't get a man to fall in love with her, she will be erased. But with Yota's attention fully on Moemi, how is she supposed to make any headway?

To me, Video Girl Ai is a manga that is in a temporary, but hopefully not permanent, holding pattern. The character of Yota has become less interesting the closer he has come to his dream of being in a relationship with Moemi. The fact that he is no longer a nerd called "Dateless", but instead has become a more normal highschooler has decreased the conflict in his character. Now he has to deal with the REALITY of being "normal" and all the boring characteristics that come with that. For braving the depths of Hell a couple of volumes back to save Ai's life, he seems to have made Ai into a third class citizen pretty fast. There's JUST enough story here to keep me interested a little longer, but if Katsura doesn't get the plot moving again and bring some comedy back in, I'll be erasing this series from my reading time.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent Spidey team-up.......1999-02-20

This Spider-Man story is one of the best before the dreaded "Clone Saga." It includes a good variety of classic Spidey bad guys like Doc Ock, Sandman, etc. as well as many team-ups. It's also Erik Larsen's work on Spidey before leaving Marvel.

Spider-Man: Revenge of the Sinister Six (Spider-Man)

Average customer rating:

Not bad, but not all that great.
Masterpiece
Great Spider-Man book by Marvel!
A spectacularly spellbinding speel
Spidey has done it again

Spider-Man: Revenge of the Sinister Six (Spider-Man)
Adam-Troy Castro
Manufacturer: I Books/Marvel
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

General | Graphic Novels | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

Marvel | Publishers | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0743444639

Book Description

As the amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker has had to endure many shocks in his life: The death of his uncle Ben -- shot by a burglar years ago, when Peter might have been able to stop the killing. The loss of his girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, who perished at the hands of his deadliest enemy, the Green Goblin. The realization that his wife, Mary Jane Watson, knew his secret identity years before he finally revealed it to her. But nothing could have ever prepared him for the latest unexpected turn in his life: the possibility that he has a long-lost sister!

The revelation of a sibling he didn't even know existed is far from the only complication to the matter. For not only is his sister a deadly super-villainess known as Pity, but she's working alongside the manipulative Gentleman -- a man who masterminded the deaths of Peter's parents! Together with Doctor Octopus, Electro, the Vulture, and Mysterio, the Gentleman and Pity have formed the newest incarnation of The Sinister Six -- a group dedicated to destroying Spider-Man!

Faced with the challenge of trying to save Pity from her predicament while, at the same time, stopping The Sinister Six from carrying out the Gentleman's world-threatening plans, Spider-Man must turn to the super-spy organization S.A.F.E. and its volatile director, Colonel Sean Morgan, for help. But even with help from his hi-tech allies, Spider-Man discovers that nothing he can do will stop the Sinister Six from achieving their goal of revenge!

Customer Reviews:

Not bad, but not all that great........2005-12-01

A mysterious figure known only as The Gentleman gathers together Doc Ock, Mysterio, The Vulture, Electro and The Chameleon to form the Sinister Six. The sixth member is Pity, The Gentleman's mentally troubled, but no less lethal, henchperson. The true plan is for four of the Six to keep Spidey busy, while the other two conduct a robbery of a sort.

As entertaining as Revenge of the Sinister Six is (and boy do they get their revenge on poor Spidey), the book is hampered by some flaws. One, it is overwritten and reads as rather talky at times. Two, there are numerous errors sprinkled throughout the BP paperback edition, the proofing was quite poor. Three, there are several pop culture injokes that detract from the story, rather than enhance it.

Those problems aside, fans of Spider-Man will no doubt enjoy the two hundred page slugfest that is the Sinister Six's Day of Terror.

Masterpiece.......2003-02-13

Truly, an amazing book. The author is a genius at developing every character and leaving no one out. In this book, I truly enjoyed his portrayal of Electro and Pity's relationship. As you know, none of my reviews are very long, so I'll end there. Amazing!

Great Spider-Man book by Marvel!.......2002-10-20

This was a great book The author did a great job of describing the characters and setting. The vision you get when you read it is great and the fighting makes you feel like your right next to Spider-Man fighting along with him. This is a great book for anyone. But would mosly be liked by Spidey fans and comic lovers. And...thats it!:-)

A spectacularly spellbinding speel.......2002-10-06

I believe that Mr. Castro has brought to paper one of the better tales of our world-famous wallcrawler. And to boot Parker has his hands full with family issues, major ones that he didn't even know existed, until now. Toss in Parker's deadliest and most methodical miscreants, (okay except for Venom), and you have a sure winner.

Spidey has done it again.......2002-04-20

First of all: if you are a spidey fan, GET THIS BOOK! It is part 2 of 3-part series by Adam-Troy Castro. #1 is 'Spider-Man: The Gathering of the Sinister Six' and I'm not sure what #3 is called...

But, anyway! This is a great book! Castro really explains Spidey well from his corny jokes to his stressful day in this book. There can really funny parts in this book, like when MJ is beating up Chamealon or when Spidey is fighting Doc Ock and he is saying that Doc Ock's sayings are getting old... Also, there can be sad parts, like in one of the last chapters in the book, when he finally "rescues" the hostages at the Daily Bugle.

So, I recommend this book to every Spidey fan that's out there! GET THIS BOOK! It's great, it's awesome....

That's all I have to say, so....

C YA!

Average customer rating:
Spider-Man #18 Revenge of the Sinister Six Part 1 (Ghost Rider Side by Side, Volume 1)
Erik Larsen
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Comic

Spider-Man | Characters | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000KDE986

Product Description

Ghost Rider side by side with Spider-Man. Revenge of the Sinister Six, Part one. Issue #18. January 1992.

Spider-Man #22 (Volume 1)(The Sixth Member - Revenge of the Sinister Six Part Five)

Average customer rating:

Spider-Man #22 (Volume 1)(The Sixth Member - Revenge of the Sinister Six Part Five)
Erik Larsen
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Comic

Spider-Man | Characters | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000O0ABY6

Spider-man REVENGE OF THE SINISTER SIX: PART TWO

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Spider-man REVENGE OF THE SINISTER SIX: PART TWO
ERIC LARSEN
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Comic

Spider-Man | Characters | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000QFNZDS

Product Description

19 Feb

Spider-Man: Revenge of the Sinister Six. Issues #18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23. (The Complete 6 Part Series Set., Volume 1)

Average customer rating:

Spider-Man: Revenge of the Sinister Six. Issues #18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23. (The Complete 6 Part Series Set., Volume 1)
Erik Larsen
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Comic

General | Comic Strips | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

General | Graphic Novels | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

Marvel | Publishers | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

Spider-Man | Characters | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000TF2MNO

Product Description

This is the complete six part series of Spider-Man: The Revenge of the Sinister Six. It includes Spider-Man issues #18 (Revenge of the Sinister Six-Part 1), #19 (Slugfest), #20 (Showdown), #21 (Dealing Arms), #22 (The Sixth Member) and #23 (Confrontation). Guest appearances by a multitude of popular characters including Ghost Rider, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Hulk, Nova, Cyborg, Solo, Mysterio, Deathlok, Electro, Hobgoblin, Vulture, Fantastic Four and more!

Average customer rating:

Surprisingly good recipes

Creative Companion

She had an opportunity...

A Fun , Informative, Helpful Read!

More Than 100 Recipes - Ready for Year-Round Entertaining

Katie Brown's Weekends: Making the Most of Your Two Treasured Days
Katie Brown
Manufacturer: Bulfinch Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
Decorating | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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Katie Brown's Outdoor Entertaining: Taking the Party Outside

Katie Brown Decorates: 5 Styles, 10 Rooms, 105 Projects

The Art and Craft of Entertaining

Get Togethers with Gooseberry Patch: Food to Bring Family & Friends to the Table

Presentations: A Passion for Gift Wrapping

ASIN: 0821262092

Book Description

Domestic guru Katie Brown offers more than 100 easy and delicious recipes and simple projects to help families get the most out of their weekends. Katie Brown believes that no one should waste time or moneyaccording to her, they are two of the most precious things that we have. With a mere two days out of the week to catch up on the things most important to us, we all seek to make the most of our weekends. KATIE BROWNS WEEKENDS offers creative advice on how to cook great meals, spend quality time with family and friends, find your green thumb, and make easy and practical crafts. Chapters focus on properly organizing a home, experiencing wonderful holiday traditions, and traveling around the world without leaving home, as well as teaching the art of volunteering and charity. With recipes that use five steps or less and fun family projects that can be done within an hour, Katie likes to say that she teaches domesticity for dummies. There are over 100 recipes and projects and each is accompanied by a full-color photograph that shows the end result.

Customer Reviews:

Surprisingly good recipes.......2006-07-24

I'd never heard of Katie Brown nor am I very domestic, but I first borrowed this book from my public library - lured in by the great photos and simple-yet-elegant-looking recipes. I've made 5 or 6 of the recipes in the book and every one of them has been delicious (my husband and friends/guinea pigs think I took some great cooking classes). I'm finally buying my own copy, so I can try out all of the recipes. I like the little personal comments in the book, too - my best sure-to-please recipes are family recipes (my own or friends' families), and this book often reads like a collection of family recipes from a good friend. Give it a try!

Creative Companion.......2006-02-25

This book allows one to take their creative minds to the max...it was easy to plan parties, get together, or kids craft days with this book!

She had an opportunity..........2006-02-18

To do a better book. I'm not sure this is stuff any normal person would want to do on a weekend. I mean, using an old tire as a planter? An old filing cabinet? Katie...that's called a junk yard. Trash heap. I think you get cited for that stuff in most towns.

A Fun , Informative, Helpful Read!.......2006-01-12

Let me say first off that I really liked this book. To me, in this read, Katie Brown not only gives us some great recipes and project ideas, but also opens her life to us with some heartwarming stories of her childhood, her revelation of the importance of spending time with family and friends, and capturing moments of life.
I felt the book was extremely colorful, the photos bright and cheery, the recipes mouth watering and the projects interesting.
I certainly may not want to do the projects shown, but I don't believe that was the full idea behind this work. I believe Ms.Brown wanted us all to stop and smell the roses, enjoy life and appreciate those we love and do it all in fellowship and fun.
My opinion is that this work is well worth your time and money; you will enjoy it.

More Than 100 Recipes - Ready for Year-Round Entertaining.......2005-12-19

"Katie Brown believes that no one should waste time or money - according to her, they are two of the most precious things that we have. With a mere two days out of the week to catch up on the things most important to us, we all seek to make the most of our weekends.

KATIE BROWN'S WEEKENDS offers creative advice on how to cook great meals, spend quality time with family and friends, find your green thumb, and make easy and practical crafts. Chapters focus on properly organizing a home, experiencing wonderful holiday traditions, and traveling around the world without leaving home, as well as teaching the art of volunteering and charity.

With many recipes that use five steps or less and fun family projects that can be done within an hour, Katie likes to say that she teaches "domesticity for dummies." There are over 130 recipes and projects and each is accompanied by a full-color photograph that shows the end result." (Summary from THE BOOKS website)

Customer Reviews:

Train your Shetland Sheepdog.......2006-03-10

I was disappointed in this book. It was a "read between the lines" kind of book. Was not helpful in training my dog at all.

If Sheltie is the Breed for you--this is your book!.......2002-04-30

Agree with with other reviewer that this is a great resource for sheltie owners, or propsective owners. She's correct in providing the background to why Shelties aren't the breed for everyone, as they demand attention.

She provides needed tips on how to keep the Shelties in your life happy and you in turn happy with them! They do need to work and she provides training tips on doing just that.

Info is provided on selection, stages of development, early puppy training, basic obedience, formal training, problem prevention and solutions, and advanced sports and activities.

We have our two Shelties through obedience and now into agility and can vouch how much fun this breed truly is. This book will aid your enjoyment of this intelligent and loyal breed.

Great Book.......2002-03-18

This book had great information about the Sheltie. I felt it was quite helpful to me. It also had great pictures!!

If you have a sheltie, get this book........2001-08-03

This is quite easily the most useful sheltie book that I own. Most books about shelties are slim volumes that talk about grooming, the breed history, and a little about temperment. This book dives right in to telling you how to housebreak your sheltie, how to train them to sit, heel, come and stay, and more. It covers a little about competing with shelties in obedience, agility, and herding, and has tons of wonderful pictures. It's full of great, practical, advice. If you're a new dog owner, you should really pick up this book and read it.

Average customer rating:
The Tamale Quilt: Story Recipe Quilt Pattern
Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli
Manufacturer: Quarter-Inch Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Quilts & Quilting | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0965342247

Book Description

The aim of this work is to recover classical Roman assumptions about women on the basis of the surviving linguistic data. The author provides a control to her study of the connotations of the major Latin words for women in the form of a corresponding examination of how Roman authors use the various words for men. The resulting analysis throws light not only on Roman gender vocabulary but also on Roman cultural perceptions of class, moral worth and nationality. Furthermore, the author's detailed discussions of strictly linguistic evidence enable her to offer several original and persuasive insights about the traditional Latin literary representation of women. Understanding the connotative range of gender terms such as homo, vir, femina, mulier also reveals the value judgments made by ancient authors on male and female behaviour and can even be applied as a tool of historical analysis.

Book Description

From the early 1960s through the early 70s, Pop Art swept the industrialized world. Iconoclastic, rebellious, and immediately popular, the new movement found its roots in an unprecedentedly prosperous consumer society. Encouraged by galleries and publishers who catered to a new collectors' market, many Pop artists were drawn to the creation of editions on paper and in multiples. 60 vibrant examples by such American icons as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, and by such European artists as Richard Hamilton, Niki de Saint Phalle, Gerhard Richter, Eduardo Paolozzi, and Sigmar Polke, are organized according to the themes of mass media consumer culture, politics, erotica and more. All of the works included herein are from The Prints and Illustrated Books Collection at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, an exceptionally rich repository of such work.

Customer Reviews:

Pop Prints.......2000-05-01

This cataloge of the recent exhibition "Pop Impressions Europe/USA" at the Museum of Modern Art in NY, added immensely to to my understanding of the pop art movement. it makes it evident that pop was a global movement and not solely American. Also, the organization of the book is themeatic, with such catagories as "Mass Media" and "Erotica" helping to clarify the feeling of the time period. "Pop Impressions" is also lavishly illustrated with color reproductions (almost one on every page), a necessity with this art movement.

Customer Reviews:

Great Perspective of the South during a Tumultous Time.......2003-06-27

I decided to read this book for purely personal motives. Having been raised in California by a father who grew up in Birmingham in the early twenties and thirties, I had a desire to understand this man, my father, who seemed at times to have such radical world views. Reading Paul Hemphill's story, specifically the retelling of details of growing up in a working class family, including the bigoted views his father held, helped me to understand the world that molded many whites prior to the civil rights movement. When chosing this book, I wasn't looking for a dry detailed history but rather an insiders view of what this world of "Birmingham, Alabama" must have been like growing up. Why it created such biogtry? And How can we continue to change? Paul Hemphill, through this book, helped me to understand, what kind of a world Birmingham was, and how it shaped and molded the people who grew up there.

A Student's Perspective.......2002-03-19

This book was required reading for my Civil Rights class. Although at times a bit too detailed and tangent prone, Hemphill's style is very gripping and kept my attention. The way in which the formation and development of Birmingham is disussed, enterpreted, and explained is superb. Hemphill does an excellent job of juxtaposing the racial, economic, and social climate that evolved and gripped the city of Birmingham throughout the years. I would consider this autobiography of sorts a must read for any person interested in issues pertaining to the Civil Rights Movement. Just get through the few dry parts, the rest is well worth the read!

Probes the ethnic relationships in Birmingham.......2001-02-21

In 1963 Alabama was the site of racial violence: native Hemphill decides here to return to his hometown, to come to terms with his family and life. Leaving Birmingham probes the ethnic relationships in Birmingham past and present, providing an intriguing analysis of the tensions and present-day life.

Not Just For Southerners.......2000-08-24

The reader should note that this book is not a history, but an honest reminiscence by the author. Paul Hemphill was born and raised in a Birmingham that no longer exists, and his story is a sentimental, though often melancholy, remembrance of his journey from childhood to an adulthood marked by his departure from his native city. Unlike other native sons, such as Roy Blount and Howell Raines, who long ago moved to New York and have spent the majority of their adult lives apologizing for having been born in the South, Hemphill offers the reader a painfully honest autobiography that parallels the mutually exclusive forces of change and retrenchment within Birmingham before and after World War II. He presents an insightful glimpse of a city unique in the South, a city created atop one of the richest iron ore deposits in the country, with no antebellum, gentrified past, a tough, muscular city. It is a Birmingham as it truly was, a city divided not in two parts, but three: the Birmingham of poor, legally segregated blacks, the Birmingham of working-class whites who manned the steel, iron and coke factories during their height, and the Birmingham of the Mountain Brook overseers, the representatives of the absentee landlords who owned these factories, the men of a separate community entirely, who publicly stayed above the fray of civil rights strife, all the while stoking and manipulating the blue collar whites to whom civil rights appeared a supreme threat. It was into such a working-class family that Hemphill was born. His descriptions of his hard-working, traditionalist father, his mother and the neighborhood in which he grew up, are perhaps the finest elements of the book. It is evident that this was no easy book for Hemphill to write. He must counter-balance the admiration he holds for his parents and the joys of his childhood, with the ultimate revulsion he felt in adulthood toward a civilization predisposed all along toward heightened brutality. It is not only his personal journey, but the journey of Birmingham from "the Magic City" to "Bad Birmingham"; the journey of Bull Connor from "voice of the Barons" to the "voice of legalized segregation". Hemphill witnessed all of this and it is sadness, not cold judgement, that pervades this book and sets it apart from the many other books written about that city and that time. This reviewer highly recommends this book to anyone who has an interest in gaining a personal perspective of the Birmingham of mid-20th Century America.

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