Book Description
Created for those who work and play on the shores and in the shallow subtidal of the Pacific, this easy-to-use field guide is suitable for amateurs and professionals alike. Featuring a "quick key" and filled with interesting details, this comprehensive book will enable you to readily identify 128 species of nmarine algae commonly found along the coast from Alaska to Baja California. Each species is accompanied by at least one color photograph, and text that covers identifying characteristics, range, and habit. Contains 138 color photographs, 14 line drawings that illustrate algal structures and life cycles, 3 easy-to-use keys to help sort and identify specimens and 9 recipes for cooking with seaweed.
Customer Reviews:
A great book.......2005-09-06
The color photographs are very useful. This book is a good choice for the amateur. I know Abbott and Hollenberg is a standard, but many of us don't need such a comprehensive volume.
A full-color field guide.......2003-08-11
Jennifer Mondragon and Jeff Mondragon are a pair of marine biologists who have personally traversed the Pacific coast from southern California to Alaska. In Seaweeds Of The Pacific Coast: Common Marine Algae From Alaska To Baja California, Jennifer and Jeff effectively collaborate to provide the reader with a full-color field guide featuring eye-catching photographs combined with basic information about identifying characteristics, range, and habitat concerning 128 species of marine algae commonly found in the Pacific coast region. Seaweeds Of The Pacific Coast is very highly recommended as being an superbly organized and thoroughly "user friendly" quick reference which is suitable for marine biology professionals and non-specialist general readers alike.
Book Description
Both an invaluable resource for travelers in France, with detailed listings for 3,200 of the best places to eat and stay in all of the 16 regions, and a mouthwatering and fascinating celebration of the best of French food and wine, illustrated with atmospheric and informative specially-commissioned color photography.
Customer Reviews:
Invaluable Guide!.......2005-08-21
We picked up this book at the last minute for our last trip to France. It proved to be an extremely wise decision. As we didn't plan out our trip in minute detail, but decided to see where each day took us, this book helped us every step of the way. Any of the restaurants we ate at,or inns we stayed at recommended by the book proved to be great choices! Some of the other places we ended up at that weren't listed in the book were more hit and miss. We're going back to France next month, and will be bringing this along again!
Note: even if an establishment is listed, make sure you see any rooms before you book them for the night! Some of the more expensive establishments aren't always worth the price they are asking.
Average customer rating:
- Reagan's Philosophy in a Comparative Light
- Not just an actor, but an advocate of democratic principle
- A Unique and Valuable Analysis of Reagan
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The Last Jeffersonian: Ronald Reagan's Dreams of America
Steven Greffenius
Manufacturer: June, July, & August Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Presidents & Heads of State
| Leaders & Notable People
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Reagan, Ronald
| ( R )
| People, A-Z
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0971526605 |
Book Description
The Last Jeffersonian gives Reagan his due as a politician, a patriot, and a political thinker. Michael Beschloss calls Reagan "one of the most important presidents in American history." This book explains why. Based on a close study of Reagan's most important speeches, as well as analysis of his key policies, The Last Jeffersonian shows why Reagan connected with the American people. He reformulated traditions of limited government, free enterprise, democratic participation, and patriotic belief in the future. He argued for his updated version of the American dream with perseverance, passion, and energy. As a result, he changed the country and the entire world.
Customer Reviews:
Reagan's Philosophy in a Comparative Light.......2002-12-27
The succession of essays, each on a facet of Reagan's philosophy, reveals an inspiring amalgam of contrast and comparison among Reagan, Jefferson, Jackson and FDR. Even Gatsby, Willy Loman, Horatio Alger, Micawber and Mr. Magoo are pointedly drawn into the mix. Indispensible if you wish to know Reagan.
Not just an actor, but an advocate of democratic principle.......2002-12-18
I had long ago all but dismissed Ronald Reagan as an amiable and polished speaker of lines he had been given to read. Still I was curious about his appeal, even to such intelligent critics as George Will. Will and others had written columns over the years defending Reagan's views, but I wanted more: a coherent defense of the man's principles in view of his (to me) obvious callousness towards the have-nots. It was for this reason that I read Dr. Greffenius's impassioned championship of Reagan. Through Greffenius's presentation of the principles Reagan defended--all stemming from his radical belief in the importance of individual freedom--I began to think of Reagan, for the first time, as a brilliant conduit for the principles of democracy first espoused by Thomas Jefferson. Greffenius does not ignore Reagan's critics, but engages them directly. And as I read this book, I found myself thinking often of F. Scott Fitzgerald's conclusion to The Great Gatsby. The Last Jeffersonian opened my eyes to the ways in which Ronald Reagan gave us, perhaps for the last time in history, a view of our America from "somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night." I can't, even now, describe myself as a Reagan fan. But The Last Jeffersonian was nevertheless an interesting and very worthwhile read.
A Unique and Valuable Analysis of Reagan.......2002-08-01
In The Last Jeffersonian, Steven Greffenius persuasively contends that Ronald Reagan articulated the values of American democracy as understood and defined by its great Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson. It's a unique and valuable analysis. (Lou Cannon)
Average customer rating:
- A masterpiece.
- Haunting...
- from beginning to end
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Notes from a Bottle Found on the Beach at Carmel
Evan S. Connell
Manufacturer: Ecco Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
20th Century
| Poetry
| United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Poetry
| United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
20th Century
| Poetry
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Poetry
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
United States
| Single Authors
| Poetry
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
The Aztec Treasure House: New and Selected Essays
-
The Collected Stories of Evan S. Connell
ASIN: 0880014075 |
Customer Reviews:
A masterpiece........2005-11-23
I can do no better than to quote what Annie Dillard, in Harper's magazine, wrote about this book:
"It takes the form of a spiritual journey 'towards penance and redemption,' a journey through all the fabulous and fiery cruelties of history that purge the spirit's basest dross and purify it to gold. On the page it is a dazzling series of disparate chunks. These are the 'notes from the bottle' written in increasingly apocalyptic haste by the poem's speaker, or 'note-taker...'
"The tone is merciless and meticulous; the alien landscapes are spare. ...
"I cannot begin to suggest the intricate tensions of the poem's complexity. After you read it once, you can get lost on any page."
After an equally glowing review of Connell's Points for a Compass, she writes:
"These poems are masterpieces. You could bend a lifetime of energy to their study, and have lived well. The fabric of their meaning is seamless, inexhaustible. ... their language is steely and bladelike; from both of its surfaces flickering lights gleam. Each page sheds insight on every other page; understanding snaps back and forth, tacking like a sloop up the long fjord of mystery."
Haunting..........2004-12-22
Connell chooses to start his Notes with an excerpt from Euripedes:
"There be many shapes of mystery,
And many things God makes to be,
Past hope or fear.
And the end men looked for
Cometh not,
And a path is there where no man sought.
So hath it fallen here."
It is difficult to describe the merits of this book. It is strange and wonderful and so unlike anything else I've read. It does become less convoluted, however , if you also read his book The Aztec Treasure House. A lot of the background information is made explanatory in that book.
Here are the recurring motifs in the book...if you like them, then buy this book.
"Things that remain and are not diminished by time
are whichever live in men's hearts or have fallen
or have been thrown into the sea."
"To think deeply right now would terrify me."
"Each life is a myth, a song given out
of darkness, a tale for children, the legend we create.
Are we not heroes, each of us
in one fashion or another,
wandering through mysterious labyrinths?"
from beginning to end.......1999-03-28
this book held me captive from begining to end. The first page he describes the death of his brother, pulled apart while chained to horses, sort of a medievel torture. The rest of the book follows his search for his brother, in a sort of "wandering mind", best described as rantings. (I am not a poetry critic nor will I ever pretend to be, so forgive the short descriptions)
This is the first book of poetry I ever picked up since reading Homer and I am stuck now, looking for something or some author that can match the magnitude of how wonderful this one was.
It reads as though you have entered his mind for this fascinating trip through a bit of lunacy and mind wandering. If you like th strange and surreal, you will love this one!
Amazon.com
"My grandmother Cheever taught me how to embroider, how to say the Lord's Prayer, and how to make a perfect dry martini."
Alcoholism seems to have been a family tradition among the Cheevers. The posthumous publication of pater John Cheever's journals revealed both his fondness for the bottle and his bisexuality; daughter Susan has gone her father one better, publishing a memoir of promiscuity and drunkenness while still alive. In Note in a Bottle, she leaves little to the imagination as she chronicles her career, her many sexual escapades and, of course, her drinking. A typical passage goes something like this:
Warren knows San Francisco so well it's like being in his own house to be there with him. He took me to a bar with wooden booths. We ate delicious chowder and drank white wine. He drank vodka and grapefruit; it was lunchtime but I could see he had just gotten up. I wondered who he had been in bed with. I drank more white wine.... "I still love you," he said, and he kissed me. I was late for dinner with Calvin.
The early sections of Cheever's memoir, in which she describes the culture of drinking in the '50s and '60s, are quite interesting; the problem is (to rewrite Tolstoy), all unhappy drunks are the same. Once Cheever shifts her focus to her own personal catalog of cocktails and dysfunctional affairs, she becomes interchangeable with any number of other alcoholics who have trod that slippery slope before her. And as the details of her various messy marriages or affairs (or both) with Robert, with Calvin, with Warren, et. al pile up, one finds oneself wishing for a little less history and a little more mystery. Still, Note in a Bottle contains some astute observation delivered in Susan Cheever's appealingly ironic prose style and some interesting insights into the rarified world of the literati that she inhabits. --Margaret Prior
Book Description
Born into a world ruled and defined by the cocktail hour, in which the solution to any problem could be found in a dry martini or another glass of wine, Susan Cheever led a life both charmed and damned. She and her father, the celebrated writer John Cheever, were deeply affected and troubled by alcohol. Addressing for the first time the profound effects that alcohol had on her life, in shaping of her relationships with men and in influencing her as a writer, Susan Cheever delivers an elegant memoir of clear-eyed candor and unsettling immediacy. She tells of her childhood obsession with the niceties of cocktails and all that they implied -- sociability, sophistication, status; of college days spent drinking beer and cheap wine; of her three failed marriages, in which alcohol was the inescapable component, of a way of life that brought her perilously close to the edge. At once devastating and inspiring, Note Found in a Bottle offers a startlingly intimate portrait of the alcoholic's life -- and of the corageous journey to recovery.
Customer Reviews:
Annoying memoir of drinking.......2005-04-30
You know when you're in AA meetings and there's that person who just blah-blah-blahs aimlessly about herself and everyone else is bored? That's fine for an AA meeting--it's important for us to process out loud in that forum--but it's not fine for a memoir. It's not that there is no value in this book, in the way that hearing other alcoholics' stories has value...but where is the craft? What is Cheever saying that someone else hasn't said better? This writer would never have been a writer if not for her famous name. Or, maybe if she hadn't had the famous name to fall back on, she might have actually developed her craft. As memoirs of drinking lives go, skip this one and try Augsten Burroughs' DRY or Caroline Knapp's wonderful DRINKING: A LOVE STORY.
Post - it in a Bottle.......2004-02-28
Though "Note" is neither deep or introspective, it was easy to read with occasional excellent lines. My favorite (which made the whole book worth it for me) was "It's not that I had a miserable childhood -- I didn't -- it's that I was a miserable child."
The memoir is interesting in its very ordinariness: except for her father's fame which gave her access to more wealthy and famous people, her life, her affairs, her alcoholism and her recovery were unremarkable.
Though I enjoyed this book, it was more like an after-school special on the dangers of alcohol (you will forget things, have big fights, and sleep with many men) than an illustration of alcoholism or even the life of Susan Cheever. She admits some things, such as God, and apparently her feelings about her father, are "too private" to explain. Perhaps so, but then why write a memoir?
Misleading title.......2000-06-06
In reviewing a book, one must have a basis from which to start. In considering Cheever's book, I cannot fathom where to start a conclusive review because the entire title of the novel is completely misleading. My intent in reading this autobiography was to learn more about an alcoholic firsthand, in her own words. Unfortunately, there was very little substantial material written about alcoholism, its effects, repercussions, etc. In fact, had that title been different I would have probably enjoyed this bland book about a woman's life tinged with alcohol, among many other things which were given just as much attention in the book. Therefor I find it useless to judge this book because it is based on so many vacant concepts.
Just plain bad.......2000-06-03
The autobiographical drinking story has been done many times before, so the subject matter here is nothing new.
What's so striking different about this book is that there is almost no self-reflection. It's just a compilation of what Susan Cheever drank, the places Susan Cheever drank, the men Susan Cheeer screwed while she was drunk. We'd get much the same result of Susan had gone to Kitty Kelley and asked "Will you write a shallow, vapid account of my life?"
Note Found In a Bottle is self-absored and boringly so. I imagine what keeps Susan awake at night is that most people have found this account of her drinking years Not Very Interesting. She earnestly wants the reader to believe her life was glamourous, but in fact it's just an average drunk story.
I guess there are worse ways to spend (money) than to throw it away on this book....but not many.
So Light That It Floats Away.......2000-06-02
At one point in her recent memoir 'Note Found In A Bottle', Susan Cheever tells us that looking back on her life she almost feels as though it had happened to someone else. I find that very easy to believe, because this comes off as an amatuerish biography by a not-so-close aquaintance. Reading this book, I felt as though Cheever were fast-forwarding through a poorly made movie of her life. She has clearly been through a lot and has experienced enough to write something formidable, but instead she rushes through her life stopping only to drop the occasional name. What is truly amazing to me is the lack of introspection on Cheever's part. Once in a while she attempts to analyze her past, but the attempts are shallow. Simply put, she was unable to get close enough to her own life to allow me to empathize.
It is very difficult to review a memoir, because in the end you are not only reviewing an individual's work, you are reviewing the individual. That being said, I don't think I would have enjoyed having Susan Cheever as a friend. While she seems to have made some vague connection between her past problems and her drinking, she often writes as though she were patting herself on the back for her cool friends and hip lifestyle. Now she pats herself on the back for outgrowing her desire for a drink. If only she had spent more time thinking and less time revelling in the hype she has created for herself, this could have been a book worth reading.
Average customer rating:
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Mi Canario y yo/ Me and My Canary (Amo a Los Animales / I Love My Animals)
Sigrun Rittrich-Dorenkamp
Manufacturer: Hispano Europea Editorial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Birds
| Animal Care & Pets
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Animal Care & Pets
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
Ornithology
| Zoology
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Spanish
| Foreign Language Nonfiction
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Ornitología
| Zoología
| Ciencias Biológicas
| Ciencia
| Libros en español
| Formats
| Books
Pájaros
| Cuidado del Animal y Mascotas
| Hogar y jardinería
| Libros en español
| Formats
| Books
General
| Cuidado del Animal y Mascotas
| Hogar y jardinería
| Libros en español
| Formats
| Books
No-Ficción
| Libros en español
| Formats
| Books
| Automotriz
| Ciencias Sociales
| Crimen y Criminales
| Educación
| Estudios de la Mujer
| Feriados
| Filosofía
| Gobierno
| Hechos Verídicos
| Planeamiento Urbano y Desarrollo
| Política
| Sucesos de Actualidad
| Transportación
ASIN: 8425514800 |
Average customer rating:
|
My Canary and Me
Sigrun Rittrich-Dorenkamp , and
S. R. Dorenkamp
Manufacturer: Barron's Educational Series
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Birds
| Animal Care & Pets
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Animal Care & Pets
| Home & Garden
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0764119885 |
Book Description
This charmingly illustrated title focuses on the nature and traits of the canary, and provides basic instruction on caging, feeding, and general care. Books in this series are written especially for inexperienced pet owners, for parents whose kids would like to have a pet, and for kids who simply want to learn more about animals that make good pets. Boys and girls are also introduced to the golden rules of pet care, and are advised on how to create affection and trust between themselves and their pets. Several gatefold pages in each book open wide to display attractive photo essays on animals and their care. Every book in this series contains approximately 80 full-color, high-quality photos, as well as instructive drawings.
Book Description
'Affairs of the Heart' is a quilt with 36 appliqud blocks on a black background, each integrating a heart motif in some manner. The blocks are intricate in appearance, yet easy enough to be tackled by novices with basic appliqu skills. Even the experts will find themselves engaged in the delicacy of the exquisite design elements and the vividness of the florals, influenced by the author's Burmese background. Aie (pronounced a) adds scrolls and scallops to her borders. The blocks are a manageable size, so each one can be completed within a single sitting. While the author made the quilt by hand with the needle-turn method, the designs lend themselves to other appliqu methods and could easily be done by machine. Using a variety of fabrics and thread colors gives depth to the design and adds to the vibrancy of the quilt. The author used printed border fabric but includes directions for achieving the same effect with appliqu. AUTHORBIO: An architect by trade, Aie (pronounced like a long A) is also skilled at drawing quilt designs. She began quilting while taking a break from her professional career to raise a family. Originally from Myanmar, formerly called Burma, Aie brings Southeast Asian influence to many of her designs and color schemes. The most recognizable aspects about the quilts she makes are their stylized, scrolled designs appliqued in bright colors on a dark background. REVIEW: Aie Rossmann's Affairs of the Heart is also a winner for all skills levels. Aie Rossmann's applique, guide blends flowing designs with vivid color schemes and almost 40 blocks linked by a heart motif. Choose this for any loving gift for Valentine's Day presentation, accenting the result with the scrolls and scallops recommended within for border accents. -Midwest Book Review
Customer Reviews:
Applique Masterpiece: Affairs of the Heart .......2007-09-26
Good ideas for color and patterns. I'll find a lot to use in this book, but I would include instructions in a clear and simple manner.
Quilters Librarian.......2007-08-24
This book has every pattern well illustrated and can be used for every different kind of material. Well received from our club.
no needle-turn applique technique information.......2007-07-31
I was hoping for some helpful hints about needle-turn applique but there is absolutely nothing here about the applique process. Only instructions are about quilt construction. I was also surprised by how poorly the author does needle-turn applique. The photos clearly show poorly done, jagged curves and obvious large stitches. I can do better than this and I'm a mere novice. Interesting colors and patterns, but that's the easy part! I was disappointed in this book.
I like it!.......2006-03-18
Wonderful combination of applique and embroidery. Emboridery stiches are simple, and the applique patterns range from simple to a little more complex ( but managable ). No boredom here!
Applique Masterpiece: Affairs of the Heart.......2006-03-18
Ms Rossmann's exploration of many possibilities using a heart motif results in an array of very interesting designs, and her use of color is fascinating. However, these are unlikely patterns for a novice, since the instructions for transferring the designs and the methods she gives are archaic. A person skilled in applique can do much with the patterns. A good basic book on hand applique is recommended for others.
Book Description
Written by the winner of the Best Garden at the esteemed Chelsea Flower Show in 2002, this inspirational cornucopia of garden designs and plantings offers a breathtaking array of fashionable styles and choices. The selection of 20 varied layouts ensures that there’s something for every taste and garden type—whatever its condition. Most schemes come from Platts’ own portfolio and display his interest in the natural forms and soft, flowing colors of traditional gardens. Among the most magnificent is the Chelsea champion—a refurbished walled area with a summerhouse, shade trees, and bounteous plants. Along with the beautiful spreads showcasing each design, there’s plenty of information on gardening techniques, soil preparation, drainage, pruning, mulching, and weed control, so you’ll be able to create your own winning garden.
Average customer rating:
- One of the best child raising books ever!
- Simple and sweet
- Wonderful essays
- More to motherhood than carpools and sleepless nights
- Motherhood thoughtfully written about
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Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race, and Themselves
Kate Moses , and
Camille Peri
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Women's Studies
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Women
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Family Relationships
| Parenting & Families
| Subjects
| Books
Motherhood
| Family Relationships
| Parenting & Families
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Parenting
| Parenting & Families
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Parenting & Families
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
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Mothers Who Think: Tales Of Real-life Parenthood
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Confessions of a Slacker Mom
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It's a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons
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Maybe Baby: 28 Writers Tell the Truth About Skepticism, Infertility, Baby Lust, Childlessness, Ambivalence, and How They Made the Biggest Decision of Their Lives
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The Bitch in the House : 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage
Accessories:
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Health o Meter HDC100-01 "Grow with Me" Teddy Bear Scale for Babies and Toddlers
ASIN: 0060598786
Release Date: 2005-04-12 |
Download Description
"
In June 1997, Camille Peri and Kate Moses launched the daily website Mothers Who Think on Salon.com for women who, like themselves, were starved for smart, honest stories about motherhood -- personal and intimate stories that went beyond tantrum control and potty training to grapple with the profound issues that affect women and their children. Like the online site, their bestselling, American Book Award-winning anthology
Mothers Who Think struck a nerve across the country not just with mothers, but with all those who shared a vested interest in the raising of the next generation.
Because I Said So gives readers even more to think about. This new collection of fiercely honest essays edited by Peri and Moses captures the challenges of motherhood in the twenty-first century as no other book has. Writers such as Janet Fitch, Mariane Pearl, Mary Roach, Susan Straight, Margaret Talbot, Rosellen Brown, Beth Kephart, Ariel Gore, and Ana Castillo delve into the personal and the political, giving passionate expression to their relationships with their children and to their evolving sense of themselves. Provocative, candid, witty, and wise, their stories range from the anguish of giving up child custody to the guilt of having sex in an era of sexless marriages; from learning to love the full-speed testosterone chaos of boys to raising girls in a pervasively sexualized culture; from facing racial and religious intolerance with your children to surviving cancer and rap simultaneously.
Told in prose that is as unabashedly frank as it is lyrical, this is the collective voice of real mothers -- raised above the din -- in all their humor, anger, vulnerability, grace, and glory.
"
Customer Reviews:
One of the best child raising books ever!.......2007-04-11
This book is more valuable than most child care raising books out there. This book addresses everything regarding raising kids, raising husbands and raising yourself. After reading some of the short stories you will realize how lucky we all are,no matter what our circumstances.
Simple and sweet.......2006-07-07
I enjoyed reading this book during midnight wakings when my son was 6 months old. These are sweet short stories by excellent writers and real moms. I love to give this book to friends who are expecting.
Wonderful essays.......2005-10-30
Great to read a book from a mother's perspective. Written on subjects other than spit-up and carpooling.
More to motherhood than carpools and sleepless nights.......2005-08-29
This book has 33 stories written by 33 intelligent women who happen to be mothers. Stories cover the gamut of breaking cultural rules, losing a successful business and starting over, dealing with divorce, moving to a foreign country and leaving your children behind, facing a difficult situation when the kids love the nanny as much as the mother, and other topics that many of us would never dream of confronting. For those who have faced such situations, these stories remind us we're not alone.
I don't know how to do these stories justice with this review. I feel like a friend sitting across from the author of the story, telling her tale as if I were her best friend because of the intimate details she shares. The stories don't have a hint of whining children, male bashing, or "woe is me" moaning. After reading a story, don't be surprised if you wish you could meet the author and become her friend.
Instead, meet a Muslim woman who deals with the stigma of having a child out of wedlock in "The Scarlet Letter Z." Meet a woman whose father killed himself when she was young and she didn't find out till eight years later - then her own husband was killed leaving her a widow at 34-years-old with a child on the way in "On Giving Hope." Meet a woman who arranged to have a dinner with her husband at a five-star restaurant and everything prior to the event goes wrong as she explains, "Why I Can Never Go Back to the French Laundry."
Mothers sometimes feel disconnected like their lives are all about their children and their activities. Reconnect by reading these essays and take strength in knowing there are smart women who happen to have the title of Mom added to their list of roles and accomplishments. They talk about motherhood beyond sleepless nights, potty training, carpooling, or food battles.
Read stories about autism, spousal abuse, growing up, babysitters, dolls, parents-to-be from different races, and a single woman having two children by artificial insemination. Expect to learn life lessons from these stories as these women have grown from experiencing life. You might walk away with something you didn't have before reading the book.
I am stunned by some of the revelations as I can't imagine admitting such things to a friend much less to a faceless public, which no doubt includes family and friends. The honesty reminds us that it's OK to feel or think this way - it doesn't make us bad, just human.
The essays vary in length so a mom can squeeze a little reading between feedings, a few minutes before going to sleep, while waiting in the carpool line, or during lunch break. Any time spent with this book is gratifying and worth every minute.
Motherhood thoughtfully written about.......2005-08-10
I read this book just after reading Mothers Who Think, an earlier book of mothering essays put together by the same people. Both books were very well done, full of essays where mothering is thought about seriously by many different mothers with many different views. However, this book focused a bit more on mothers of older children, including a lot of teenagers and preteens. There were some wonderful essays here---for me, the standout one was by the mother of a child with autism. It was one of the most realistic yet inspiring pieces of writing I've ever read about parenting such a child. The piece about the American Girl craze was also very well done. It's interesting to read how many parents re-evaluate their parenting views and perspectives when faced with children reaching older years and getting more of their own personalities! However, I found that this was not quite as strong a book as Mothers Who Think. More of the essays were less rooted in the actual act of being a mother and were more philosophical, which is fine, but not really what I was looking for--for example, the essay on traveling to Egypt to see a certain piece of art in a museum there, as a way of dealing with pregnancy loss grief. Another essay was more of a literature survey of child care literature, again, well done but not really based in day to day mothering. One of the most jarring essays for me was the one about Marta, the nanny for the author's children. It was very honestly written, but I found myself feeling so sad for the nanny, as the mother seems resentful that her daugther loves the nanny so, and that the nanny sides with the daughter in a spat between mother and daugther. If you hire someone to take care of your children, you WANT them to love your children, don't you? Overall, this book is certainly worth a read--I hope more books like this are written---books that take mothering seriously.
Amazon.com
Gerald and Sara Murphy were the golden couple of the Lost Generation. Born to wealth and privilege, they fled the stuffy confines of upper-class America to reinvent themselves in France as legendary party givers and enthusiastic participants in the modernist revolution of the 1920s. He became an important painter; she made everyday life a work of art. Their friends F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos all based fictional characters on the Murphys; Picasso painted them; and Calvin Tomkins rekindled their glamour for a younger generation in his affectionate 1971 portrait, Living Well Is the Best Revenge. Amanda Vaill's vivid new biography builds on Tomkins's work to provide a full-length account of the Murphys' remarkable life together.
As well as good times, that life included suffering endured with great courage. The Murphys' teenage sons died within two years of each other in the mid-1930s--one suddenly, one after a long battle with tuberculosis--and the Depression forced Gerald to resume the uncongenial work of managing his family's business. Vaill's sensitive rendering reveals the moral substance that enabled this stylish couple to survive heartbreak. But it's her marvelous evocation of those magical expatriate years that lingers in the memory. The wit and imaginative panache with which the Murphys lived sparkles again, recapturing a splendid historical moment. As Sara later said, "It was like a great fair, and everybody was so young." --Wendy Smith
Book Description
Gifted artist Gerald Murphy and his elegant wife, Sara, were icons of the most enchanting period of our time; handsome, talented, and wealthy expatriate Americans, they were at the very center of the literary scene in Paris in the 1920s. In
Everybody Was So Young--one of the best reviewed books of 1995--Amanda Vaill brilliantly portrays both the times in which the Murphys lived and the fascinating friends who flocked around them. Whether summering with Picasso on the French Riviera or watching bullfights with Hemingway in Pamplona, Gerald and Sara inspired kindred creative spirits like Dorothy Parker, Cole Porter, and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Nicole and Dick Diver in
Tender is the Night were modeled after the Murphys). Their story is both glittering and tragic, and in this sweeping and richly anecdotal portrait of a marriage and an era, Amanda Vaill "has brought them to life as never before" (Chicago Tribune).
Customer Reviews:
"Making It New".......2007-09-06
I had to go out and buy this book after seeing "Making It New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy" at the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, MA. The book is terrific, but if you're interested in this period, its writers and artists than track down this exhibit. It's a wonderful and extraordinary show about the Murphys and those they were friends with. Paintings, theater pieces, diary entries, letters, amazing photographs, home movies and more illustrate that the Murphys were really an essential part of the 1920s and 1930s. An argument can be made that they were the center that everything spun out from. It is absolutely sensational.
The Murphys: maybe more interesting than their pal Fitzgerald.......2007-04-01
Zelda Fitzgerald died on March 10, 2005. Hers was a terrible death --- she was a patient at the Highland Mental Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, and the building caught fire, and because the patients were locked in, Zelda and eight others died. She was 48.
Her life had, effectively, ended years earlier, when she had the first of her breakdowns and was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. Or had it ended earlier than that? Perhaps with the death of her estranged husband, the once glamorous, then ruined F. Scott Fitzgerald, in 1940. Or maybe even earlier, on the Riviera, in 1924, when she had a dalliance with a French aviator that so enraged that her husband she tried to kill herself a few months later. Or even earlier, when Scott started appropriating her personality and her ideas for the characters in his novels.
Yes, but for a few years there, they had it all, didn't they? They were the Golden Couple, the personification of the '20s: young, beautiful, gifted. But not smart about fame, although, back then, almost no one understood how the flame of media draws you in, consumes you for the amusement of an uncaring public, and leaves you with ashes in your mouth and regret in your heart.
No, wait. Some people did grasp that. The Murphys did. And, as Amanda Vaill tells their story, they are considerably more interesting than their friends, the drunk and disorderly Fitzgeralds.
And can we talk about turning life into art?
Late each morning in the summer of 1922, Gerald went outside his home in Antibes and created something never seen before --- a beach! --- by raking the seaweed and stones. For this, he is said to have invented the idea of the Riviera as a summer destination.
Moments later, Sara would join him and, on a blanket, read or write. She wore a white linen dress or bathing suit. And, always, a long strand of pearls, which she looped around her back so she wouldn't mar her tan (and, she said, because the sun was good for them). For this, she became a style-setter and muse.
Gerald and Sara together were not two but one. They were "The Murphys," a young and rich American couple who used their youth and money to establish themselves at the center of a cultural elite in which everybody was young, talented, acclaimed. Cole Porter, Stravinsky, Picasso (who was in love with Sara), Cocteau --- though they were stars on their own, they orbited the Murphys. "There was a shine to life wherever they were," Archibald MacLeish said. "It was as though custom and habit had been wiped away and the thing itself was, for an instant, seen. Don't ask me how."
Then F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway showed up.
If you've read Tender Is the Night, you know that Fitzgerald took the Murphys as models for the Divers. Whatever its merits, the novel reduced the Murphys to "Beautiful People." In fact, Gerald was an accomplished painter, an American Leger. He and Sara were experts on African-American spiritual music. They financed theatrical productions and helped worthy friends (Hemingway, for just one).
And they were far from untouched by the troubles of ordinary mortals.
First their young son Patrick came down with tuberculosis. Then, suddenly, their younger son died of meningitis. "Fancy. There's no other word for it," John Dos Passos said. "They could have thought & thought for a million years and they wouldn't have been able to think of one like that." And then, "fancy" again, a few years later, when Patrick died, and the Murphys had to carry on for their one remaining child.
It gets, if possible, more intense. Gerald returned to America to run his family business, a posh New York leather store named Mark Cross. He sent money to the faltering Fitzgerald. He had some deep poetic attachments with young men. And then he died. Dorothy Parker sent his widow this telegram: "Dearest Sara Dearest Sara." The widow staged a funeral that was described as "courage disguised as taste." But that was his life. And hers.
It's easy to read a book like this for the anecdotes about the mighty. But Fitzgerald comes across here as an eternal college boy and a bit of a fool, Hemingway as cold and manipulative. In contrast, the Murphys seem like explorers of the rarest kind --- blessed with money, they set out to find beauty and harmony. That they also found tragedy only makes their story more fascinating.
College kids majoring in Gender Studies can find much in the life of Zelda Fitzgerald to ponder. I'm not knocking that --- there are lessons galore in that roller coaster of a life. But when you're further along the road, the Fitzgeralds start to be, at bottom, a lot of noise --- spoiled children breaking things.
The Murphys, in contrast, look more substantial, more worthy of a sustained view. The Murphys, for all their money and privilege, seem real. These days, I don't want to read about the Fitzgeralds; I want to read Fitzgerald. But the Murphys --- they're well worth 500 pages.
Real Life Is Better Than Fiction!.......2007-01-11
This delightful story is like watching a wonderful old movie from the 30's-40's! And I learned a thing or two about history!!! I'll be urging my book group to read this.
You will wish you had lived and loved and laughed with them.......2006-07-23
This is a joy, a party, a nonfiction book that reads like a novel. It will make you long to be a part of the expatriate Americans in Paris and the south of France during the 1920s, even if you are not particularly good with history. Amanda Vaill takes a decade, a place, and a group of friends, and unravels for you a world where Hemingway and Fitzgerald adored, hated and envied one another; a world in which Picasso draws Sara Murphy on the beach, nude but for a long strand of pearls; a world in which John Dos Passos and Dorothy Parker and so many others of the "Lost Generation" simply populated each other's lives with more talent and longevity than any of them truly knew. Meeting them one at a time, through beach parties and romances and the writing of novels and the making of art and the normal joys and tragedies of life, will plant the history of this time in your mind like you would never guess. Watch out -- your next step may be Hemingway's "Moveable Feast" and Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night," and you will be yearning to eat at The Brasserie Lipp in Paris, straining to hear the ancient laughter coming from the back room.
A beautiful story beautifully written.......2005-12-27
The story of Gerald and Sara Murphy is sprawling and encompasses so much that was exciting about America's last period of innocence, and runs the gamut from being the golden-child chosen ones of their era to something approaching Greek tragedy in their private lives. But the real test of a good biography is in the writing, and Amanda Vaill stands beside David McCullough as one of the most engaging biographers in our time, doing the incredible job of keeping all the players and egos, all the locations and permutations straight, intriguing, and finally resulting in something most biographies never are: A real page-turner. Even if you've never read Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Dos Passos, or MacLeish, their stories as interwoven with the Murphy's own will grab and hold your attention as brilliant, distinct, and all-too-human characters. Kudos for a masterwork that pulls all the disparate elements of the Lost Generation together so effortlessly to convey this important time in 20th century history.
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Bless Our Ship: Mountbatten and the Kelly
Richard Hough
Manufacturer: Hodder & Stoughton
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