Air Support for Patton's Third Army

Product Description

As the United States Third Armys tanks moved through Avranches, no one, not even the Third Armys commander, Lieutenant General George S. Patton, could have foreseen that it was the start of one of the most successful offensives of World War IIan offensive that received a great deal of help from the air. As Patton later wrote to the chief of the Army Air Forces, For about 250 miles I have seen the calling cards of the fighter-bombers, which are bullet marks in the pavement and burned tanks and trucks in the ditches. This book covers the units in the Ninth Air Force, which gave close air support to the Third Army, and the Third Armys campaign in France from August to November 1944, with special emphasis on how support from the air helped the Third Army continue pushing toward the German border. The difficult logistics of the operation are discussed in detail: Both the Ninth Air Force and the Third Army were hurt by a lack of matériel, especially gasoline, and this affected the offensive.

Customer Reviews:

Air Support for Patton's Third Army .......2007-01-20

Air Support for Patton's Third Army is a well written account of Patton's service and action of the Third Army drive into Germany during World War II. The Air Force that supported Patton's efforts was the Ninth Air Force which provided tactical support with fighters and light bombers.The plane on the cover on the book is an A20 which my father flew for the ninth Air Force over France during the Normandy landings and beyond. I bought the book hoping that it would cover more of the Ninth Air Force and its contribution to the war effort and support for Patton's Third Army. Hardly any mention is given to light bomber missions or the A20 aircraft. The author provides very limited accounts of the Ninth Air Force missions to the point where this book is more about Patton and the ground battles that took place during this period of WWII. However, this is the only book that I have found that gives one an overall view of the events that took place by describing both the army and the air force contribution to select battles. Given these limitations I feel that this book is still a must have book for those individuals interested in WWII.

Air Support for Patton's Third Army.(Book Review): An article from: Military Review

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Air Support for Patton's Third Army.(Book Review): An article from: Military Review
Gregory Fontenot
Manufacturer: U.S. Army CGSC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Military Review, published by U.S. Army CGSC on March 1, 2005. The length of the article is 740 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: Air Support for Patton's Third Army.(Book Review)
Author: Gregory Fontenot
Publication: Military Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2005
Publisher: U.S. Army CGSC
Volume: 85 Issue: 2 Page: 84(1)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Customer Reviews:

A Truly Elegant Book!.......2003-07-16

Dr. Goldsmith has given us an intimate look at the "man behind the myth", while Robert P. Libbon has suceeded in making Einstein's work understandable to the layperson who is willing to put in a bit of effort. I enjoyed the biographical content and figured I would have to skim the technical writing, not being well versed in such heady stuff, but found Mr. Libbon's historical anecdotes and entertaining explanations of Einstein's work to be just as compelling as the personal details of his life.

Authorized by the Estate of Albert Einstein this book is enriched even further with illustrations and photographs from family archives as well as a CD-ROM about his life and work which makes this truly "The Ultimate Einstein".

Great, but I wish it had more science.......2000-04-03

I always have to qualify my weakness toward a book like this: that I'm not a "hard scientist." (In retrospect, I wish I'd had the inclination to become one while younger, but that's another story). This is a fine book, but I read the portions that I highlighted again and again, as I'm trying to understand, among other things, relativity better. But that may be my problem, more than the book's.

One way the book helped me vastly was with the sort of "New Age" reputation Dr. Einstein is getting these days. Some New Age advocates are implying that Einstein was sort of a mystic. They do this because they aren't capable of understanding what he said, or how he said it. But, alas, ignorance of a person's statements does not transform the one who stated them into a guru. The authors state in no uncertain terms that, despite rhetoric to the contrary, Einstein didn't develop his theories by daydreaming and musing over petty, metaphysical items. Rather, he used sophisticated mathematics and physics to devise them. So, sorry, New Agers, you don't have some UFO resident with a German accent who'll deliver you on a new Hale-Bopp.

Oh, and he DID make mistakes, e.g., was it the unfied field theory?; theories he defended but years later referred to as huge errors.

It's well written, though not adolescent; the CD I got with the book is incredible!

If you're interested in Einstein, the man, this is the book I'll recommend. As to relativity, I'll read Bertrand Russell's book, "The ABCs of Relativity," mentioned in this book, and others. And if you want some applications of the theories, the CD is, again, great.

Fun and Informative.......2000-02-14

This is the only book and CD-ROM set authorized by the Einstein estate. It is just GREAT! The book is well written, informative and accurate. The CD-ROM is filled with video and sound clips with Albert Einstein from the historic archives and contains thought experiments, virtual reality laboratory that demonstrates the effects of relativity and more. This is a must have book.

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A Terrific Resource for Parents and Professionals

Trials and Trickles

An excellent book for the subject

Comments from TRY for DRY

Excellent resource for frustrated parents

Getting to Dry: How to Help Your Child Overcome Bedwetting
Max Maizels
Manufacturer: Harvard Common Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Household Hints | How-to & Home Improvements | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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Accessories:

Braun IRT 4020 ThermoScan Ear Thermometer

ASIN: 1558321314

Amazon.com

"Yeah, he wets the bed, but so did I. He'll grow out of it." Sure, he probably will. But in the meantime, a child who chronically wets may suffer from low self-esteem or feel restricted in his or her social life. Pediatricians and parents regularly respond to bedwetting by forbidding water after dinner, prescribing drugs or an alarm system, or even resorting to punishment, but attempts are often sporadic and not part of an organized plan. As a result, they're not always successful.

In Getting to Dry, authors Max Maizels (professor of pediatric urology), Diane Rosenbaum (child psychologist), and Barbara Keating (a nurse specializing in bed wetting) describe their system for analyzing your child's wetting problem and fixing it through a combination plan of behavioral therapy (carrying your child to the bathroom when he or she has to go), an alarm system, occasional drug therapy, and/or diet (no milk after lunch time, for example). They claim terrific success rates. Getting to Dry dispels myths and educates about enuresis, and then leads parents and kids step by step through the process of "getting to dry." The book also includes information for kids who wet during the day, as well as a superior troubleshooting guide that will help parents identify their child's specific problem and choose the appropriate steps to take toward a cure. --Ericka Lutz

Book Description

In this book, the excerpts at the country's leading center for treating childhood wetting show that parents can speed up the clock and children can wake up happy and dry. They cover the pros and cons of wetting alarms, drug therapies, and changes in diet and sleeping schedules, and they provide warmhearted advice on how to replace punishment and shame with rewards and praise.

Customer Reviews:

A Terrific Resource for Parents and Professionals.......2007-05-13

As a licensed clinical psychologist, this book provides all of the information necessary for both professionals and parents to understand enuresis, and determine how best to address (and conquer) the problem.

Trials and Trickles.......2006-03-11

This is truly an excellent, in depth report of how and why children remain at the bedwetting stage in their lives. It is a commitment to a regimen that is necessary to get beyond the wetting stage. I have an 8 year-old male that is a very heavy sleeper. I sometimes think I've comitted more into this than he has. While the Kegel exercises work, and we made a rhyme of it...(we call it doing the Three Pee) it has controlled his over-wetting on most nights. So, our nights of getting up to change sheets are slowly becoming history. In my opinion, if the child is truly committed to being dry, this program WILL work! It's an excellent read for the biological minded. Share it with your twinkler. They'll enjoy understanding the science behind the wet bed!

An excellent book for the subject.......2002-04-19

This is the book for anybody having children who wet their beds. It provides a good introduction to the different causes for bed-wetting and guidance on how to address them.
In our family we followed the program with the alarm system, since our boy's bed-wetting was due to deep sleep. Using the positive reinforcement and guidelines outlined in the book, our son was dry in less than 2 months. I just wish I had seen this book sooner.

Comments from TRY for DRY.......2001-03-15

We are proud to see that "Getting to Dry" has consistantly been the best selling book on the topic of bedwetting here at Amazon.com and after the first year of publication, "Getting to Dry" is now in its second printing.

In response to a previous review that points out a typographical error in the Ditropan graphic, we would like to assure our readers that this has been corrected in the second printing which also includes additional updated material and information.

Excellent resource for frustrated parents.......1999-04-24

Replaces expensive enuresis resolution programs, best reference available to the layman on the subject. We consulted numerous pediatricians and pediatric urologists who were no help. We found the book after enrolling in an Ann Landers reccomended program- could have saved the money- this book was much more helpful. One note of caution- there is a very bad typo in the paperback edition.DITROPAN SYRUP IS 5mg/5ml NOT 5mg/ml. That could be a dangerous error for those interpolating their dosages for tablets.

Average customer rating:

Simple, Flavorful, and Fast

A Winner

Pillsbury Thirty-Minute Meals
Pillsbury Company
Manufacturer: Clarkson Potter
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
General | Quick & Easy | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
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Betty Crocker One-Dish Meals: Casseroles, Skillet Meals, Stir-Fries and More for Easy, Everyday Dinners (Betty Crocker Books)

ASIN: 0609608592
Release Date: 2001-10-09

Book Description

In Pillsbury® 30-Minute Meals, the Pillsbury experts prove that a complete, satisfying, and delicious meal can come together in a mere half-hour. With chapters on beef and lamb, pork, chicken, turkey, fish and shellfish, and vegetarian dishes, as well as a selection of quick, simple sides, the latest addition to the Pillsbury library features 225 main dishes that require only 30 minutes to prepare.

Each recipe includes prep time and detailed nutritional information. Thanks to the inspiring menu suggestions, each main dish is spotlighted at the center of a balanced meal with the simplest of side dishes and desserts. Hurried cooks will also find plenty of useful time-savers such as Quick Products for Quick Meals, Shortcut Ingredients, as well as lists of useful kitchen gadgets, ways to shop effectively, and “smart” pantry staples.
Americans can’t seem to get enough of timesaving cookbooks. Now, from America’s most-trusted kitchens, Pillsbury® 30-Minute Meals will be the cookbook delivering convenience and quality faster than the pizza guy.

Customer Reviews:

Simple, Flavorful, and Fast.......2002-04-12

I give this cookbook for wedding shower gifts. I find that today's newly weds are usually both working out of the home and don't want to spend hours in the kitchen at the end of the day. It has a great variety of quick and easy recipes that appeal to everyone. Actually, I bought the first cookbook as a gift and ended up keeping it for myself. The recipes are simple and easy to prepare without sacrificing flavor. I highly recommend this cookbook for all!

A Winner.......2002-01-10

I received this book as a Christmas gift after asking for a cookbook with quick, easy recipes, that use on hand ingredients.
This one certainly does. When I first looked at it, I wasn't sure I would like it, but after trying several recipes, I have been thrilled with the results. I have a love for cooking and a collection of cookbooks, but with a 3-year old and a 5 month old I wanted one that could show me how to make a good meal FAST! Everything I have prepared from this book has been excellent tasting and appealing to the eye - even my picky three year old enjoyed it. Now on evenings when I'm short on time, I reach for this cookbook instead of those EXPENSIVE all-in-one frozen bagged meals, so it has saved me money too. I watch for specials/sales on the canned items and meat and stock up when I can so they're ready to reach for. I enjoyed this cookbook so much that I am purchasing a similar one from Pillsbury called "One Dish Meals." (From the great reviews I've read on this book - it appears to be similar to the one I have, and I can't wait to get it!) Even if you like to cook, it's nice to know that you don't HAVE to spend all day in the kitchen to get a good meal on the table. I highly recommend the book. (Use the time you save making meals and spend it with your kids or doing something else you love.)

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Wide variety

Good Variety, Colorful, Some Unusual Patterns

Crochet With Heart Best-Loved Afghans (Crochet Treasury)

Manufacturer: Oxmoor House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Crocheting | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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Quick and Cozy Afghans

ASIN: 1574862006

Customer Reviews:

Wide variety.......2006-02-25

Best Loved Afghans contains a wide variety of patterns including a few for baby, a couple seasonal styles, and a range from very casual to some more formal styles. There are some I can't wait to make and others I don't care for at all. The color photographs are quite helpful in project selection, although some of the colors appear to be a little off.

Good Variety, Colorful, Some Unusual Patterns.......2001-05-07

Crochet With Heart Best Loved Afghans is a step-by-step, easy to use book, with detailed instructions on all stitches included in the back of the book. The color schemes and some unusual patterns that make the use of cross stitching on the afghans can be found in this book. The only down side of this book is that some of the patterns might run over onto another page with another afghan pattern.

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Crochet With Heart: Best-Loved Afghans

Manufacturer: Leisure Arts / Oxmoor House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1574861999

Product Description

Well illustrated with color photographs and b&w stitch charts and drawings. 49 favorite crocheted afghan designs from Leisure Arts; each with materials lists and easy to follow instructions. Pictorial boards, about 11 inches tall.

Book Description

Is my child hyperactive, or just normally active? What should I do about tantrums? How can I teach my child to share? Is late talking a problem? How much fantasy and make-believe is healthy?Understanding what physical and psychological developments have turned your sunny one-year-old into a rambunctious two-year-old is an important part of being an effective parent. In this friendly, informative guide, you'll learn to handle education and discipline, social skills and nutrition, while you give your two-year-old fun, affection, and a safe place to grow during every stage, from 25-36 months, including:*getting along with other children *willfulness and temper tantrums *sexual curiosity *nightmares, fears, and phobias *television viewing *books for reading to twos *the best toys *pre-reading and pre-math learning games * table manners and politeness *stuttering * easy and stress-free toilet training *dangers inside and outside the home *food preferences and problems *and moreFilled with helpful suggestions and hands-on advice, Surviving Your Two-Year-Old in The Magical Years series lets you feel confident about being a good parent, at one of your child's critical turning points.

Customer Reviews:

A must have book for any parent with a two year old!.......2000-04-26

I am a first time mother of a two-year old and found myself able to relate to this book. It has answered many of my questions concerning a number of topics, such as tandrums, sleeping problems, discipline and so much more. I would recommend this book to any parent who has a child entering the "terrible-twos." Unlike many parenting books, this book divides the second year into three different month groups, which allows you to see the progress your child will make throughout the whole year. I feel as if the book has given me hope for the coming year, that I still might be able to keep my sanity, as well as manage my overactive little girl.

Surviving Your Two-Year-Old-12: Cal Ripken Jr Stor

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Surviving Your Two-Year-Old-12: Cal Ripken Jr Stor
Janet Poland
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Description

In this collection of interviews, artists from various disciplines and in various stages of their careers discuss how they balance their art with the practical aspects of earning a living. They explore how this dichotomy, which affects them creatively, financially, spiritually, and professionally, can be both frustrating and nourishing. Some artists have managed to find art-related work to make ends meet. Others contemplate their dual role in both the artistic community and in the corporate or academic world. They discuss the role art plays in influencing social change and the role technology has played in revolutionizing the creation of art and its marketing and distribution. These insights into how artists merge their creative life with their financial obligations will be useful to both instructors and students in the arts. Topics such as how artists have managed to acquire flexible work schedules and educational leave will also appeal to professional artists looking for employment suggestions or alternatives. Representative artists include painters, writers, musicians, dancers, actors, and performance artists.

NIGHT AND DAY: THE DOUBLE LIVES OF ARTISTS IN AMERICA

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NIGHT AND DAY: THE DOUBLE LIVES OF ARTISTS IN AMERICA
Gloria Klaiman
Manufacturer: Praeger Westport, Connecticut
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IWL6DA

Book Description

Primo Levi, author of Survival in Auschwitz and The Periodic Table, wrote books that have been called the essential works of humankind. Yet he lived an unremarkable existence, remaining until his death in the house in which he'd been born; managing a paint and varnish factory for thirty years; and tending his invalid mother to the last. Now, in a matchless account, Ian Thomson unravels the strands of a life as improbable as it was influential, the story of the most modest of men who became a universal touchstone of conscience and humanism.

Drawing on exclusive access to family members and previously unseen correspondence, Thomson reconstructs the world of Levi's youth-the rhythms of Jewish life in Turin during the Mussolini years-as well as his experience in Auschwitz and difficult reintegration into postwar Italy. Thomson presents Levi in all his facets: his fondness for Louis Armstrong and fast cars, his insomnia and many near-catastrophic work accidents. Finally, he explores the controversy and isolation of Levi's later years, along with the increasing tensions in his life-between his private anguish and gift for friendship; his severe bouts of depression and passion for life and ideas; his pervasive dread and reasoned, pragmatic ethic.

Praised in Britain as "the best sort of history" and "a model of its kind," Primo Levi: A Life is certain to take its place as the standard biography and a necessary companion to the works themselves.

Customer Reviews:

buy the book.......2005-02-08

A really wonderful biography on a complex man. Kudos to the author. I'm impressed.

An exquisitely detailed look at a fascinating man.......2004-04-14

A highly enjoyable book. Thomson paints an extremely detailed picture but does not attempt to create a mythic figure out of Levi. He is presented in 3 dimensions with all his strengths and weaknesses. Extremely rich look at the assimilated Jewish community of Turin suddenly being cast as the enemy of the Fascist state. Highly recommended.

Average customer rating:

fun read

The Mirror Maker
Primo Levi
Manufacturer: Schocken
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0805240764
Release Date: 1989-11-25

Customer Reviews:

fun read.......2006-06-15

hilariously insightful; primo levi doesn't usually strike across as a fantasy writer, nonetheless, his un-apologetic personality comes through these intricate stories, written to reflect various avenue in the nature of human beings.

Average customer rating:

Needs an Editor
Kind of crazy, in a world crazier than he was
The Best-ever Biography of Primo Levi.
Seeing Levi whole
Don't buy this book (sorry Amazon)

The Double Bond: The Life of Primo Levi
Carole Angier
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Authors | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0374113157

Book Description

One of the most eagerly awaited biographies of recent years: a searching life of the great Italian writer and witness to the Holocaust

Perhaps the most important writer to emerge from the death camps, Primo Levi spent sixty-five of his sixty-seven years in Turin, Italy, where he worked as a chemist by day and wrote at night in a study that had been his childhood bedroom. Thanks to his memoirs, which include Survival in Auschwitz, The Reawakening, and the classic The Periodic Table, he became widely known and loved as a supremely moral man, one who had transmuted the agonies of persecution into understanding and clarity. The whole world was shocked when he died in 1987, apparently having thrown himself into the stairwell of the house in which he had been born.

Carole Angier has spent nearly ten years writing this meticulously researched, vivid, and moving biography, which illuminates the design of Levi's interior life : how he lived as a man divided, not only between chemistry and writing but between hope and despair, and how the duty to testify released him to communicate, which was his deepest need.

Customer Reviews:

Needs an Editor.......2004-09-30

If I were to take you on a tour of my home town and tell you the life story of everyone we met (going back several hundred years in instances) you would quickly overload. "Now who is this again?" you would say. Or "why exactly does that matter?"
So will you find yourself in Ms. Angier's sprawling parade of peripheral characters, all dredged up, it seems, in apology for the blaring fact that all those whose testament would really matter here aren't talking, for whatever reason.
Imagine your own life story told from the fragments of those who really only knew you in passing - a girl you dated once, a bully, a high school teacher, a distant cousin. All called upon to comment on your reasoning, your justification in certain actions. All treated as expert witnesses. Some, you might be forced to admit, will come painfully close to the truth. Others way off the mark - only laughable speculations. But who, in your absence, could sort out the one from the other.
A good biographer, you would hope.
Ms. Angier is quite capable of writing beautifully, as witnessed in her preface to this book. She has a blazing passion for all things Levi. And she is obviously capable of extensive research. Which leaves us with mountains of detail, oh so much detail. And some convincing passages.
But actually, after several hundred dry, dry pages, I find myself looking, again and again, for Primo. That vitality of soul demonstrated in his own writings.
And that is, alas, where I am returning. The horses's mouth. With the wheat already separated from the chaff.

Kind of crazy, in a world crazier than he was.......2003-04-01

As awful as current events seem to be, with unsettled questions about who is most likely to die next dominating much of the news, this book takes a look at how a great writer managed, as best he could, for a time. Applying political psychology to figures who assumed some importance in our evaluation of the most catastrophic events in the twentieth century can still be disconcerting, as I myself might be the worst example. Part of the joke of MY VIETNAM WAR JOKE BOOK was that a 19-year-old G.I. grunt in Nam might say things that you would never expect to hear from the kind of genius who survived Auschwitz and wrote about it in the manner of Primo Levi in THE PERIODIC TABLE, which was an American best-seller when it was translated into English.

Carole Angier seems very English and aiming for an audience at a university level of views, far removed from the concerns of those Americans who need a little more control over what is happening in the world, as expressed in an article in The New York Times of March 31, 2003, of a situation which is assumed to be temporary:

Eleven days into the American-led war here, the narrow, once fertile crescent of territory that gives Iraq its only outlet to the sea remains a land of insecurity and ambivalence, devoid of the euphoria that American and British soldiers hoped to encounter in southern Iraq.

People who experienced a sense of euphoria in reading Primo Levi's reflections on life as an understanding of chemical elements are sure to find THE DOUBLE BOND by Carole Angier dismal evidence that Primo Levi's life remained "a land of insecurity and ambivalence," and that the inability to write which marked his final days was primarily a lack of the sense of euphoria that newspaper reporters Marc Santora and Craig S. Smith, writing for the Times, had assumed that Americans would expect for those encountered in great historical events.

This is a big book with a tremendous index, but most people will find that few of the people listed in the index are familiar to them, though two lines are required for the pages on "Americans," as distinct from the three lines for "America/United States." There are also listings for "Britain" and "England," but no extended discussion of the controversy there, in which David Irving is listed for a single page, on the book, HITLER'S WAR. American and England are such outlying areas in the scope of Levi's concerns that the description of his "barrage of articles" (p. 603) trying to counter Holocaust denial seems obsessed with the French. THE DOUBLE BOND is hardly neutral, but mentions such disconcerting facts as that Louis Darquier de Pellepoix was Vichy's commissioner of Jewish affairs. "Darquier was eighty-five years old and clearly senile, he said; since he himself had sent 70,000 French Jews to their deaths, he was hardly a disinterested party." (p. 603). The word "disinterested" here must primarily mean disinterested in the truth. I just received news that a newsman, Peter Arnett, (I am the face), was fired by an American network for talking in Baghdad on Iraqi TV. The standard applied in his case was hardly whether he was still capable of thinking of interesting things to say, but more along the lines of whether other people ought to be given the opportunity to believe what he was thinking.

In these interesting times, MY VIETNAM WAR JOKE BOOK is the worst possible point of view because its interest is primarily in laughing. Primo Levi could never have written MY VIETNAM WAR JOKE BOOK, because he did not have the personal interest in pursuing that situation past its most absurd conclusion, that geopolitics could be responsible for the deaths of 3,000,000 Vietnamese without ultimately accepting any responsibility for the fate of the survivors. Levi had math for Europe: "There had been 17 million Jews in Europe in 1939, and 11 million in 1945: where were the missing 6 million?" (p. 603). There might be fewer people in Iraq in a few months than there were a month ago, but Levi is a poor candidate (he's dead, you know) for thinking that anyone could be more disinterested in that than he is.

On the question of therapeutic value of trying to provide attention to those who need it most, the tangled web in this book is tied to older lives: "from 1978 onwards his depressions were triggered very largely by his mother's decline, and by its consequences. But it was also not true, because neither was natural or external. The truth is that his own relationship with his mother was pathological; and so was the level of care Lucia required them both to give. These together were quite enough to depress him on their own." (p. 602). This is entirely like his relationship to "those who denied the crimes he had devoted his life to recording. They, and they alone, brought out in him absolute intolerance; and a violence of language (`senile', `stupid', `mad') which was to him the essence of the Lager, and normally beyond the pale. The appearance of Faurisson and his ilk was the deepest shock to him: perhaps as deep as the shock of Auschwitz itself. These new Nazis lived in peace and safety, unlike the original ones." (p. 604). Having experienced a bit of shock ourselves, it is not too surprising that some governments have an interest in bringing a bit of shock to Iraq, but hardly like the shock Levi brought when he died in the house where he had been born, Corso Re Umberto 75, "built in the good middle-class areas of Turin around the turn of the century." (p. xxiv). This book honors his life, and is a profound appreciation of the nature and meaning of his death, too.

The Best-ever Biography of Primo Levi........2002-06-23

Carole Angier deserves the thanks of anyone seriously interested in the life of this strange and amazing man who helped and continues to help mankind to deal with the massive trauma of World War II and, further, with all attempts since then to kill the soul. She has spent years in attempting to discover him, in assessing what is factual, what can be conjectured, and what is unlikely about this man who was so reticent and whose family and friends are devoted to respecting his privacy and that of his family. However, it is true that a great man belongs to the world too.

Unfortunately the world will not tolerate the fact that he was human and seems not to want to forgive him for taking his own life, as appears likely, especially in view of his call for help to Rabbi Toaf shortly before his death. Myth does not grow well in the presence of fact, and the facts that Carole Angier has tirelessly gathered will enrich our understanding immeasurably but have disappointed some. This seems true too regarding her altogether modest and to my mind reasonable and well-founded speculations as to his motivations and of the emotional flow of his life. Levi himself saw this coming, said that he was not a "guru" and could not bear the weight of such a role.

She seems to me to have come to central and moving understandings of his surroundings. One can only stand in awe of the amount of information she has absorbed in her attempt to make the most accurate portrayal of the influences impinging upon him. Her depiction of the Auschwitz environment is as complete as I have ever seen; her understanding of how there could be non-shameful fellowship there which would turn to shame when viewed by the outside world; her understanding of the sad fate of the Samaritan Lorenzo, who could not tolerate his life after Auschwitz, that this is how heroism is, "a historical glory but a personal burden." True for Lorenzo and for Primo Levi as well.

It has become fashionable in Primo Levi circles to reject absolutely studies of him, as the previous biography by Anissimov, which are in any way flawed. But the truth is we owe a debt of gratitude to her as well; she roughed in the picture and indicated areas that need to be understood. Primo Levi induces in his readers a protective possessiveness; everyone who reads and loves him wants to rescue him from the imperfect perception that has just been promulgated. This is sainthood in formation. But he was not a saint; he was an imperfect and therefore all the more amazing human being.

Carole Angier has given us a relentlessly factual, moving, and gracefully written portrayal of this complex man. This is the best of biography. She deserves our thanks also for rendering him as we feel he would have liked, in shades of gray, but gray composed of flashes of brilliance mixed with the most horrifying black. Levi was a true Perseus, able to look at the face, see down the throat, of the terrifying Gorgon, able to return and to summon up the courage to tell us the revolting horror. Carole Angier in her remarkable book has helped us to understand the formation of the man who did it, how he could stand it, and what it cost him and those around him.

Seeing Levi whole.......2002-06-22

Judging from the wildly differing reviews that have appeared in newspapers in the past few weeks, this book seems to inspire either passionate admiration or something akin to personal rage. It isn't hard to understand why: Angier has written a highly unconventional, imaginative biography, in which she is herself a character at times, and tells us almost as much about what it's like to write a biography as about the life of Primo Levi. She has also dared to use her own intuition -coupled with, and informed by, her scrupulous research and reflection -- to deduce things that Levi, a very private man, did not himself talk about. Finally, she has clearly angered the people who do not want to believe that Levi killed himself; it is impossible to believe, after one has read her, that his fall from the landing of his apartment building in Turin was accidental. Perhaps even more disturbing to those who saw him as some kind of radiantly sane figure is her sorrowful conclusion that he did not do it because, or primarily because, of what he had suffered in Auschwitz.
The portrait of him that emerges is of a man who was not the secular saint, the avatar of reason, that his readers have supposed, but something greater: a tragically repressed man who struggled with overwhelming depression all his life (except, ironically, as Angier tells us, when he was in Auschwitz), triumphing not so much in his person as in the great books in which he refused to give way to it. It seems a more amazing accomplishment that a deeply troubled, self-doubting, conflicted man should have produced those masterful works of illumination and sanity than if he had simply been the serene figure of his readers' imaginings. And it should come as no surprise to anyone that literature of the high order of Levi's does not come out of an effortlessly serene mind. Angier makes it clear what a conscious artist he really was.

Though she sometimes hammers her point home rather than allowing the reader to arrive at his own conclusions about the conflicts that lay at the heart of Levi, it seems impossible that anyone will ever come closer to penetrating the mystery of the man.

Don't buy this book (sorry Amazon).......2002-06-16

I thought the concept of writing psychobabble books had gone out of style in the 1970s -- that is the concept of a biographer who did not know his/her subject personally, did not interview most of the subject's contemporaries (especially family members) and did not have access to any psychoanalytic records, writing an utterly speculative, fiction-laden account of a "great man's (or woman's)" life. This book by Angier is just such a pile of speculative junk. And poorly written and poorly organized to boot.

Mind you, I am a fan of "analytical" biography & history. Where the author does not just narrate but attempts to interpret the facts & to tease out conclusions. Angier has gone so much farther than that. Since she speculates without facts and ignores existing facts (which is to say, the material in Primo Levi's own wonderful writings). She turns an interesting man, a fascinating man into a pathological man, who is no more than her (made up) aggregation of psychological complexes.

I am so disappointed in the NY Times Review of Books for having featured this volume on the cover of their publication this weekend. Angier should pay me for having read it. Instead, I paid her.

Amazon.com

Survival in Auschwitz is a mostly straightforward narrative, beginning with Primo Levi's deportation from Turin, Italy, to the concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland in 1943. Levi, then a 25-year-old chemist, spent 10 months in the camp. Even Levi's most graphic descriptions of the horrors he witnessed and endured there are marked by a restraint and wit that not only gives readers access to his experience, but confronts them with it in stark ethical and emotional terms: "[A]t dawn the barbed wire was full of children's washing hung out in the wind to dry. Nor did they forget the diapers, the toys, the cushions and the hundred other small things which mothers remember and which children always need. Would you not do the same? If you and your child were going to be killed tomorrow, would you not give him something to eat today?" --Michael Joseph Gross

Book Description

Survival in Auschwitz: If This Is a Man is a book written by the Italian author, Primo Levi. It describes his experiences in the concentration camp at Auschwitz during the Second World War.

Levi, then a 25-year-old chemist, spent 10 months in Auschwitz before the camp was liberated by the Red Army. Of the 650 Italian Jews in his shipment, Levi was one of only twenty who left the camps alive. The average life expectancy of a new entrant was three months.

This truly amazing story offers a revealing glimpse into the realities of the Holocaust and its effects on our world.

Customer Reviews:

Non-emotional.......2007-07-07

A monotone, sort of scientific voice. His story is sad...but is told with very little emotion. It was hard to get into - a little harder to read due to the "scientist' type voice that I'm not used to. I found Elie Weisel's "Night" to be a much more candid look inside a survivor's haunted soul. Primo Levi is good for someone who prefers reading something about the Holocaust that is a bit more textbook vs. memoir.

A clinical memoir of the Holocaust -- and that's good.......2007-06-03

A touching, but not mawkish or dramatic, memoir. One realizes the randomness and happenstance by which he survived, and easily accepts the moral dualism of the life of thievery and connivance, within bounds of common decency and collective group self-interest, that kept any survivor alive. Some reviews seemed to fault the book for being unemotional, but one sees how Levi's essentially scientific and objective personality became a key to his survival, and necessarily informs his voice.

The meaning of being 'human'.......2007-01-16

This account of the imprisonment, internment, survival of Primo Levi in Auschwitz is written as a straightforward chronological narrative. Levi recounts his initial capture , the horrendous suffering of the journey of Italian Jews to Auschwitz, the selection there in which all the woman and children were immediately sent to their deaths in the gas- chambers, and in which the able- bodied sent to the work- camp at Buna. Levi tells the story , detail by detail of his getting into the work- order of the Camp. He describes in clear precise language the horrible humiliations the prisoners were subject to. He also describes in one central chapter, four different kinds of survivors, and the strategies they use to escape death. His accounts of his own getting through to the liberation include his appreciations of his friend Albert, and a few other individuals who with no reward to expect for it, helped him on the way.
The bestiality of the Nazis and their helpers is not sermonized about, but rather portrayed in specific incidents of unusual terrible cruelty.
Levi is deeply concerned with the whole question of what it means to be human , and how it is possible to retain human dignity in the most extreme circumstances.
His carefully written record of his own horrifying experience is to this day considered one of the most moving and effective of Holocaust memoirs.

Book Review for Survival in Auschwitz.......2007-01-13

The book Survival in Auschwitz is by Primo Levi. It is about a twenty-five year old chemist named Primo Levi, who is an Italian citizen of the Jewish race. He was captured by Italian Fascists in 1943 and was transported to a concentration camp in Auschwitz where he spent 10 months known as Haftling 174517. At the concentration camps they were authorized to build a Buna- a rubber processing plant. Those who were unable to work were immediately killed. Those who worked in the "Lagers" had a better chance of living because the Germans decided that the Jews in the lagers would be more of use alive than dead. Levi who works in the lager talks about how some people would trade possessions such as clothing, spoons, bowls, shoes etc. for rations of bread or food in the lagers. Those who got injured in work in the lagers were sent to Ka-Be. Ka-Be is the abbreviation of Krankenbau, which is a temporary infirmary. Those who seem to get better at Ka-Be were sent back to work and those who seem to get worse are sent from Ka-Be to the gas chambers. Later on in this book Levi and two other chemists were authorized to work in the labs. This job had some benefits. They were given a new shirt and were to work indoors, rather than out in the winter weather, and this job wasn't strenuous.

This is a book about survival. I dint like this book too much. I found this book hard to understand at some points and most of the German words are hard to pronounce. I would recommend this book to people who have interest in World War 2 or the Holocaust.

Great book on the Holocaust.......2006-12-19

Ever since I first studied the Holocaust in the eighth grade, I love reading and listening to the stories of the people who were in the Holocaust. This is the first Holocaust book that I read. I first read this book when I was in high school. This is one of my favorite Holocaust books.

Average customer rating:

Double Bond the Life of Primo Levi
Carole Angier
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OWYF3W

Average customer rating:

Primo Levi a Life
Ian Thomson
Manufacturer: Holt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LZFPS6

Average customer rating:

Primo Levi: A Life
Ian Thomson
Manufacturer: Picador
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTP0F2

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