The Huntress No. 3 Jun (Plaster Saints)

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The Huntress No. 3 Jun (Plaster Saints)
Joey Cavalieri
Manufacturer: DC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Comic
ASIN: B000VRBEPC

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Mary MacKillop - No Plaster Saint
Clare Dane
Manufacturer: ABC Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0733301363

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Mary MacKillop: No plaster saint
Claire Dunne
Manufacturer: ABC Books for the Australian Broadcasting Corp
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Specific Congregations & Orders | Congregations & Orders | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0733304117

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No Plaster Saint: The Life of M
Nancy Knickerbocker
Manufacturer: Talonbooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Political | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Marriage & Family | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0889224528

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No Plaster Saint: The Life of Mildred Osterhout Fahrni. (Reviews/Comptes Rendus).(Book Review) (book review): An article from: Labour/Le Travail
James M. Pitsula
Manufacturer: Canadian Committee on Labour History
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008DH9MQ
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Labour/Le Travail, published by Canadian Committee on Labour History on March 22, 2003. The length of the article is 1266 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: No Plaster Saint: The Life of Mildred Osterhout Fahrni. (Reviews/Comptes Rendus).(Book Review) (book review)
Author: James M. Pitsula
Publication: Labour/Le Travail (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2003
Publisher: Canadian Committee on Labour History
Page: 282(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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No plaster saint: A play abourt St. Therese of Lisieux

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No plaster saint: A play abourt St. Therese of Lisieux
Gilbert Cesbron
Manufacturer: Hollis and Carter
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007J0XJM

Average customer rating:

just ok, but what can you do

Fundamentals of Business Enterprise Taxation, Cases and Materials, 3rd ed (University Casebook)

Manufacturer: Foundation Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Law | Subjects | Books
General | Taxation | Law | Subjects | Books
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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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Corporate and Partnership Taxation (Black Letter Outlines)

Gilbert Law Summaries Taxation of Business Entities

Federal Corporate Taxation (University Casebook Series)

West Federal Taxation: Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and Treasury Regulations: Annotated and Selected, 2008 edition (West's Internal Revenue Code of 1986 & Treasury Regulations)

Partnership Income Taxation (Concepts and Insights)

ASIN: 1587788306
Release Date: 2005-07-01

Product Description

This law school casebook provides detailed information on the fundamentals of business enterprise taxation. The casebook provides tools for fast, easy, on-point research. Part of the University Casebook Series®, it includes selected cases designed to illustrate the development of a body of law on a particular subject. Text and explanatory materials designed for law study accompany the cases.

Customer Reviews:

just ok, but what can you do.......2007-05-30

I can't say this book is fantastic. But then, it's not like I go around reading business entity taxation casebooks--so I don't have much to compare it to. The book is ok, but the subject matter's pretty tricky, so don't expect great things.

In the end, it probably doesn't matter what I think. If you're a student, you probably can't control what textbook you have to use, anyway.

Cases and Materials on Taxation of Business Enterprises

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Cases and Materials on Taxation of Business Enterprises
Glenn Coven Jr. , Robert J. Peroni , and Steven A. Bank
Manufacturer: Thomson West
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Business Law | Reference | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Taxation | Law | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0314159908

Book Description

Concisely covers this complex subject matter with an emphasis on the lawyer's process. Decisions were picked and edited to build on first-year courses in contracts, torts, civil procedure, property, and constitutional law. Text also develops the differing measures of contract and tort damages and the availability of punitive damages for torts.

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Cases and Materials on Taxation of Business Enterprises
Babette B.; Peroni, Robert J.; Coven, Glen Barton
Manufacturer: West Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NY64NA

Cases and Materials on Taxation of Business Enterprises (American Casebook Series)

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Cases and Materials on Taxation of Business Enterprises (American Casebook Series)
Babette B. Barton , Glenn E. Coven , Robert J. Peroni , and Richard Crawford Pugh
Manufacturer: West Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Taxation | Law | Subjects | Books

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Professional | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0314211209

Book Description

Incorporates major developments through December of 1997, including the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. This book adopts the classic casebook approach to the study of C corporations, S corporations, partnerships, and limited-liability companies, while incorporating an expanded number of problem sets. As revised, the book is intended as a teaching tool adaptable to the newly emerging as well as more traditional law school and business school course offerings in partnership and corporate tax law. There is ample material for a three- or four-credit course on the taxation of C corporations and for a two-credit course focusing on corporate reorganizations.

Fundamentals of Business Enterprise Taxation, Cases and Materials (University Casebook Series)

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Fundamentals of Business Enterprise Taxation, Cases and Materials (University Casebook Series)
Stephen Lind
Manufacturer: Press Foundation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J0C09U

Gevurtz's Business Planning: Cases and Materials (University Casebook Series)

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Gevurtz's Business Planning: Cases and Materials (University Casebook Series)
Franklin A. Gevurtz
Manufacturer: Foundation Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Private Law | Law | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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ASIN: 1587780712

Problems and Materials on the Taxation of Small Business Enterprise: Individual, Partnership, and Corporation (American Casebook Series)

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Excellent read

Problems and Materials on the Taxation of Small Business Enterprise: Individual, Partnership, and Corporation (American Casebook Series)
Philip F. Postlewaite , and John H. Birkeland
Manufacturer: West Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Taxation | Law | Subjects | Books

American Casebook | Series | Law | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Business & Investing | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Professional | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0314066039

Book Description

The text stresses a problem-solving approach through the use of numerous short problems interspersed among the relevant materials. This problem-solving approach parallels a "real world" experience and helps to develop legal and analytic skills. Coverage of Subchapter S corporations is minimal because in the future most settings where an S corporation would prove valuable are now accomplished through the use of a limited-liability enterprise taxed as a partnership.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent read.......2002-11-28

This is a must for all small business owners, the clarity and conciseness of the writing inspirational and motivating. For years my cohort and I hesitated to open a small business, but after reading the advice provided by Birkeland about tax law, we were well prepapared and knowledgeable. Watch out Uncle Sam.

Taxation of Business Enterprises 1992-1993, Cases and Materials

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Taxation of Business Enterprises 1992-1993, Cases and Materials
Babette B.; Coven, Glenn E. ;Peroni, Rober Barton
Manufacturer: Commerce Clearing House, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000L23KPO

Taxation of International Transactions: Materials, Text, and Problems (American Casebook Series)

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Taxation of International Transactions: Materials, Text, and Problems (American Casebook Series)
Charles H. Gustafson , Robert J. Peroni , and Richard Crawford Pugh
Manufacturer: West Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Taxation | Law | Subjects | Books

American Casebook | Series | Law | Subjects | Books
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International Taxation in a Nutshell, (In a Nutshell (West Publishing))

ASIN: 0314204652

Book Description

Designed for use in law schools, business schools and schools of management, this casebook outlines the determination and administration of U.S. income tax liabilities resulting from international transactions. Textual discussion, cases, rulings and problems, guides students through the basic tax considerations that confront foreign individuals and entities participating in the U.S. economy, and U.S. individuals and entities seeking to derive income abroad. Covers both the U.S. tax rules applicable to international transactions and the tax policy considerations underlying those rules.

Teaching Materials on Agency, Partnership and Other Unincorporated Business Enterprises (American Casebook Series)

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Teaching Materials on Agency, Partnership and Other Unincorporated Business Enterprises (American Casebook Series)
Harry G. Henn
Manufacturer: West Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Business Law | Reference | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

Outlines principles of agency law and includes materials on individual or sole proprietorship. Treats the salient points of partnership law, applicable to commercial firms and to firms engaged in professional practice. Emphasizes the widely adopted Uniform Partnership Act, Uniform Limited Partnership Act, and Revised Uniform Limited Partnership Act. Differentiates between general partnerships and limited partnerships, and the growing adaptability of the latter to modern business needs and tax shelters. Presents material on other unincorporated business associations, including joint ventures, joint stock associations, and business trusts.

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The Official Blackbook Price Guide to World Coins 2005, 8th Edition (Official Price Guide to World Coins)
Thomas E. Jr Hudgeons
Manufacturer: House of Collectibles
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Coins & Medals | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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2006 Standard Catalog Of World Coins 1901-present

2007 North American Coins & Prices: A Guide to U.s., Canadian And Mexican Coins (North American Coins and Prices)

The New York Times Guide to Coin Collecting: Do's, Don'ts, Facts, Myths, and a Wealth of History

How to Make Money in Coins Right Now, 2nd Edition

Coin World 2006 Guide to U.S. Coins: Prices & Value Trends (Coin World Guide to U S Coins, Prices, and Value Trends)

ASIN: 1400048419
Release Date: 2004-06-08

Book Description

Create gorgeous quilts that look just like they were appliquéd by hand! Simply fuse appliqués in place, cover with a layer of organza, then finish with machine quilting and embroidery.

• Choose from a dozen floral-block patterns, plus two step-by-step projects

• Big blocks, fusible web, and simple details make these designs 100% trouble-free

• Shadow appliqué eliminates fussing with tiny pieces, turning under seams, and hand stitching curves or points

Customer Reviews:

Shadow Applique by Hetty van Boven.......2004-01-09

Hetty van Boven's book, Shadow Appliqué - a fresh take on a traditional technique does indeed take a fresh approach to a traditional technique. Hetty's easy to understand instructions takes the quilter through all the necessary steps to complete a variety of floral projects. From a personal perspective, I can't wait to start on the hibiscus and the nasturtium projects.
If you struggle with turning under seams and/or needle turning your appliqué work, then this is the book for you.
One aspect I particularly like is Hetty's Hints which are scattered throughout the book. These certainly help explain some of the finer points of shadow appliqué and take away some of the mystery of what, on the face of it, looks like a complicated process.
The illustrations are colourful and clear and add to the reader's delight. The 'how to ' graphics with hands 'preparing appliqué pieces' are particularly useful for 'show me how' learners like me. I especially liked reading Hetty's 'floral' notes under many of the illustrations.
Hetty gives the quilter some very useful tips for machine techniques. I loved her comment, when giving some machine quilting tips, about remembering to breath. How true.
For me, the main effort involved will be in finding a copier which can accommodate the 500% requirement to enlarge the pattern for a 16" block. If I can master than bit of technology, then the shadow appliqué part of it should be a breeze.
There are two projects at the end of the book. One, a pillow, shows you how to make one of your finished blocks into a pillow cover (Hetty chose the Passionflower block). All the details are there for a professional, satisfying result. The Norfolk Island wall hanging offers a different project and a new challenge to the quilter. The finishing touches for mitred binding and hanging sleeve are useful for whatever quilt you might make, and the final result is sure to please.
A great book, from a well-respected, international quilter who is willing to share many of her secrets with the reader. A highly recommended 'must-have' book for all quilters from novice to experienced.

Book Description

The team behind the best-selling Mexicolor and Mexicasa has unlocked the gates to Mexico's patios, courtyards, and walled gardens. From private homes to luxurious resorts, In A Mexican Garden celebrates Mexico's hidden oases where lovers meet for margaritas at sunset and families gather for spirited fiestas. The dazzling array of featured properties includes rustic coastal hideaways, elegant Spanish Colonial mansions, rural haciendas, and Modernist architectural masterpieces. Melba Levick's stunning photographs capture page after vibrant page of bold Mexican design elements: swirling mosaic floors, elaborate frescoes, hand-carved stone fountains, and lush native plants. Gina Hyams' informative text explains the historic roots of these uniquely Mexican outdoor spaces. Garden design enthusiasts, fans of Mexico, and anyone who appreciates a siesta in the sun need only open this book to hear the quiet babble of fountains and glasses clinking to toast another beautiful sunset.

Customer Reviews:

Mexican Garden.......2007-09-27

I was very surprise whith the quality of the presentation and the beautiful pictures. Excellent!!

Beautiful Photo's.......2007-09-03

I love this book! The beautiful photographs give the reader great ideas on how to design and decorate.

great book, terrible binding!!.......2007-07-19

I love the pictures and ideas presented, but after 2 days, the binding had pulled away from the pages!! I think that is flaw that needs fixing.

Mexican Garden.......2007-07-06

I chose this book to help give me some ideas as to how to " Mexicanise " my garden.
So what with the yuccas, agaves & cacti i'm well on the way, just need to add more colour & fragrance to it.

I also bought Mexicasa and Mexicolor.

It's a nice book..........2007-06-13

Your basic coffee table book, nice photos of exactly what the book claims to be: Courtyards, Pools, and Open-Air Rooms. A lot of the subject matter is authentic, old and sometimes dilapidated. Don't expect to see many pictures of new or well kept patios, pools or gardens. This is the real McCoy, just like you'll see when visitng Old Mexico...not that there'e anything wrong with that.

Average customer rating:

Good reference!

Patios and Gardens of Mexico
Patricia W. O'Gorman
Manufacturer: Architectural Book Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

Landscape | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

Reference | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

Garden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

Landscape | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

General | Home Design | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0803802102

Book Description

Illustrates outdoor living as a natural part of residential architecture and decoration.

Customer Reviews:

Good reference!.......1998-11-02

This book provides a lot of useful information on landscaping and gardening. The only disappointment for the book is that the illustrations are in black and white, which makes it difficult to really get a feel of the designs and color schemes.

Average customer rating:

Patios and Gardens of Mexico
Patricia W. O'Gorman
Manufacturer: Architectural Book Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PAV1ZI

Average customer rating:

Patios and Gardens of Mexico
Patricia O'Gorman
Manufacturer: Hastings House Daytrips Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PS31MQ

Book Description

Much as Nancy Friday's My Mother My Self explored the mother-daughter bond, this book illuminates the emotional themes that surround the important relationship betyween fathers and sons in terms both practical and theoretical, both enlightening and moving.

Drawing upon extensive case-history material, based on interviews with over 100 fathers and sons from a cross section of society, Yablonsky defines the various prototypes of each -- autocratic, egocentric, and distant fathers, compliant and rebellious sons; their interactions and interdependencies; their individual rights and duties and their obligations to each other ; the normal and pathological conflicts between them and how mothers and daughters can intervene constructively in such conflicts; the degree to which a father's status in the world can affect his son's aspirations -- and how a son's success or failure can affect his father; and other important dimensions of this complex relationship.

Fathers and Sons is an important, definitive, highly useful guide for all men who want to improve their own such relationships and for the women who want to better understand the fathers and sons in their lives.

Customer Reviews:

Not worth the paper it's written on.......2007-07-14

i'm really getting tired of all the books being published about Selena's death. Even more than 10 years on, people are still cashing in on it and writing about it and it seems to me to be the same story rehashed time and time again.
Don't get me wrong, i love Selena, i think she was an amazing artist, but this book does not do justice to her memory. The author claims that she knows a 'secret' about Selena, that Selena kept a diary and only the author knows what it contains.
She spends the whole book making reference to this while not actually telling us what that 'secret' is. Now, it's been a long time since i've read this 'book' (and i have no desire to again), but i remember the author seemed to sympathise with Yolanda. What the hell is that about? If it wasn't for Yolanda's crazy, selfish act Selena would still be alive, instead of being written about in a cringingly bad account of her life in which the author seems more sympathetic towards the murderer than the victim.

I'm embaressed to say I read this...........2007-07-05

This book is awful...what is this woman even talking about she's like a rambling idiot...oh and there's no secret.

Complete bull.......2006-08-19

When I read this book I thought it was really misleading. It was a plot to make everyone feel sorry for Yolanda. The truth is there is no secret. Yolanda is a lier. No one should feel sorry for her . If she wasn't so busy busselying money from everybodys business she would have know that she would get confronted and eventually fired. She had before inbussled money and it was settled quietly. Ms. Arrass did this book completly wrong and I must say I am disappointed to know that she beleives everything Yolanda says. Selena didn't have an affair with anyone. She wasn't going to hurt herself in anyway because she cares about her family,friends, and fans. She was in love with her husband so why in the world would she cheat on him. She never had a plastic surgeon so that was an evident lie anyway. Yolanda had absoulte no excuse for shooting selena. Yolanda got upset because she knew she had no escape from the truth. There was no way she could get out of being in front of Selena and she tried everything to get out of the situation at that moment and the only way she could do that was to kill or injure selena at that moment. SO THE SECRET IS THERE IS NO SECRET.

Self-Serving Journalism at it's Peak.......2006-02-27

I avoided buying this book years ago simply because I'd already read another review that said the "secret" was not disclosed. Now, I felt prepared to handle that and what I read was a "look at how great my show and I are!" book. She's apparently more able to be manipulated than she'd like to admit, because for some reason she believes an awful lot of what Saldivar told her; things that common sense don't dictate to be true. She states in her book that her show "Primer Impacto" has been criticized for "smacking of sensationalism" and now I know why - and I've never seen the show! "Between the lines" she insinuates that Selena was having an affair with her plastic surgeon and was about to move to Mexico and that that's why Yolanda shot her - to prevent her from causing harm to herself. PUHLEEZ!!!! I couldn't rate this book with negative stars, but if I could've that's what this book would've gotten from me.

Selena Story.......2005-08-02

It was good to know things about Selena Tragic Death Story I wasn't aware.

Average customer rating:

Intellectuals and War

A complex hero

Fascinating revelation of history through personal story

Astounding tale of an unknown chapter in Holocaust history

Absorbing well researched book on Varian Fry , Vichy France

A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry
Andy Marino
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Holocaust | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Political | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Jewish | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | World War II | Military | History | Subjects | Books
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Surrender on Demand

A Hero of Our Own: The Story of Varian Fry

Escape Through the Pyrenees (Jewish Lives)

Varian's War

Villa Air-Bel: World War II, Escape, and a House in Marseille

ASIN: 0312267673

Amazon.com

What bookish, young Harvard man Varian Fry described as his "own little war" involved no small ambition: working under the nose of the Nazis through the early years of World War II, Fry set out almost single-handedly to rescue a hefty portion of Europe's cultural and intellectual capital. Literally boatloads of Europe's best and brightest minds--poets, scientists, philosophers, musicians, painters--found safe haven with Fry and safe passage from Europe, eluding the ubiquitous Gestapo plainclothesmen ("the green fedoras") and the street-by-street raids by their Vichy cronies. Writer Andrew Marino (Herschel: The Boy Who Started World War II), thanks in no small part to the earlier research of editor Donald Carroll, details the war years of this man, dubbed "America's Oskar Schindler" and the New York-based Emergency Rescue Committee that he helped found to fund his work.

Reading like a cross between Casablanca and A Year in Provence, A Quiet American follows Varian Fry from his tumultuous beginnings convincing (among others) Eleanor Roosevelt of the necessity of his mission to his work with gangsters and gun-runners in the streets of Marseilles in order to secure the safety of Europe's intelligentsia, including such luminaries as Marc Chagall, Heinrich Mann, Enrico Fermi, and Hannah Arendt. The comparison to Oskar Schindler is apt and well deserved, but Fry's tale is all the better for his unique transformation: while Schindler was something of an opportunist-made-good, Fry was an effete, preppy intellectual, sincerely inspired by idealistic notions, whose secret work shaped him into a scrappy, resourceful hero. --Paul Hughes

Book Description

The story of Varian Fry, called the "real Rick" of Casablanca, is perhaps one of the most unknown, yet extraordinary sagas of World War II. This penetrating biography follows Varian Fry through his adult life--from his beginnings in the 1930s as a Harvard graduate and political journalist to his arrival in Marseille in 1940 where he managed to spirit away thousands of Europe's cultural elite by falsifying passports, creating new identities, and always resorting to subterfuge. The list of those saved includes: Hannah Arendt, Andre Breton, Franz Werful and his wife Alma Mahler, Heinrich Mann, Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Andre Masson, and Max Ernst among others.A Quiet American is an effort to extensively examine the life of a genuine American hero whose political and cultural influence is still largely unacknowledged.

Customer Reviews:

Intellectuals and War.......2005-01-02

Hermann Goering is reputed to have said, "When I hear the word 'culture', I reach for my pistol."
This, from one of the most prolific looters of art in recent history, takes some explanation which, as it happens, is not forthcoming.
However, upon reading of Varian Fry's heroic attempts to keep Europe from "blowing its brains out" by detaining and, certainly, eventually killing intellectuals wholesale, one may have a bit of sympathy for Goering.
It isn't the art, it's the artists.
Fry was an odd character from his earliest days when he easily manipulated his parents into letting him avoid school and do whatever it was that his latest whim desired.
He had an unusual though substantial education, and was a writer and journalist and left-wing intellectual in the Thirties. He was also what used to be called "neurotic" in that he had a number of personality traits we could call counterproductive, if we could ever figure out what Fry might think of as productive. He had a bit of hypochondria, was sometimes hardpressed to make a decision, made friends and lost them over small things, and married an older woman with whom he had a relationship whose aspects, as Marino details them, make the reader squirm, just a bit, over what Marino doesn't detail.
Whatever he managed to accomplish in those days seems to have been a function of high intelligence and fierce energy, opposed by various personality quirks.
And then he went to Marseille to rescue European intellectuals.
His transformation at that point is amazing. From intellectual dilettante, indulging his personal whims, he became, overnight, indistinguishable from a hardened and trained operative of the OSS or the British SOE (Special Operations Executive). Marino does not tell us how that happened, since it is almost certainly inexplicable.
Unfortunately for Fry and others, the same process did not occur in many of those he tried to help.
If there is one thing I did not expect in reading this book, it was the difficulty, sometimes the near impossibility, of chivvying various intellectuals through reasonably simple (given the circumstances) procedures that would save their lives.
Some, told to keep a low profile while things were worked out, paraded themselves in Marseille's restaurants and bars. Others refused simple instructions, or jibbed at the last moment, doing either nothing or something quite stupid. Fry spent a good deal of the time and resources he had--not much of either--in bailing out individuals or repairing or replacing procedures they'd put in jeopardy.
It is almost too good to be true, in terms of literary contrast, to find that Fry also had a group of British soldiers captured prior to Dunkirk to get out of the France. These men, fit and cheerful, followed directions without question, solved what problems remained, and were successfully sent home. There could have been no greater contrast between ordinary people and intellectuals.
Any reader who becomes involved in the narrative must, although sixty years and more have gone, become frustrated at the inability of Fry's charges to get out of their own way. One, after having been trouble on the European end, arrived safely in New York and began babbling to all about every secret arrangement Fry had made to get him and others safely out of the Gestapo's clutches.
Fry, for this period, was clear-minded and hard-headed and full of energy. In periods of crisis, people can go into overdrive for extended periods of time. Eventually, they collapse. Fry, however, managed to work like a fiend for months in circumstances of the greatest stress. He never lost his focus and, indeed, was able to operate outside any constraints that one might have thought his earlier life placed on him. In one case, having been betrayed and done out of a substantial amount of funding, Fry met with some of Marseille's underworld bosses and took out a murder contract on the traitor.
Eventually, having been sent home by the authorities, he returned to the intellectual's life he'd left, including neuroses, counterproductive activities, odd relationships, and eventual death in obscurity.
The obscurity is partly a matter of official activity. It wasn't until many years later, when Fry was honored in Israel as one of the Righteous, that Warren Christopher apologized on behalf of the State Department for all the obstructionism Fry had had to face from the United States.
Fry saved a great many intellectuals from death, providing the West, mostly the United States, with an intellectual boost (some became successful screenwriters as well), by finding within himself a person absolutely invisible to anyone looking at him either before or after his exploits. The greatest mystery of the story is that contradiction.
The second greatest mystery is why saving intellectuals from certain death is so much like herding cats.
What is it about them?

A complex hero.......2000-12-28

As the other reviewers indicate, this is an excellent book. The setting of Fry's heroism, Marseille and the environs of the South of France, permit an oblique perspective on the Holocaust, which unfolded principally much farther to the north and the east. Without the overwhelming machinery of the sealed boxcars, the gas chambers, the crematoria, some of the underlying causes of the Holocaust come into focus: the bureacratic obstructionism of the U.S. State department, motivated partly by national self interest and partly by the genteel anti-Semitism of individual Foreign Officers, provides a glimpse into how value-free institutional behaviour can be--a deadly underlying cause in Hitler's rise. The sympathetic behaviour of peasants living on the border and of petty police officers contrasts with the callous, and often actively evil, behaviour of their official leaders.

But always, there is the central enigma of Varian Fry himself--a complex, difficult , troubled man, in many ways a talented failure, who because of his clear moral vision became the catalyst for saving the flower of European artists and writers from the clutches of the Gestapo and their collaborators.

In another book, Todorov posits that in extreme moral situations, the basic moral unit for effective action is two, because he notes that the rescuers--Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust were rarely individuals; often they were husbands and wives. Todorov's idea is the combination of personality traits and practical abilities that produces effective resistence to an overwhelming social climate of evil is beyond the range of a single individual, and that it requires a minimum of two people to act effectively in this kind of environment.

Interestingly, Fry did organise a staff of incredibly courageous co-workers to help save his "clients", but the intriguing question is whether his very flaws were part of Fry's mysterious ability to distance himself from his society (ie American) and to plunge into effective action to resist Hitler's evil earlier than almost anyone else.

This intriguing book is very rewarding and worthwhile. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 only because of an occasional passage in which the author, who seems to be almost super-abundantly talented, seems to stray into almost novelistic detail that would seem unlikely to be supported by his research. This is mostly atmospheric, and doesn't cast a shadow on the facts themselves.

Fascinating revelation of history through personal story.......2000-12-12

I encourage anyone interested in WWII to read this book. Especially fascinating to me were the depiction of important characters in pre-war Europe. I gobbled the book, then started looking for more - I would advise against following this book with Varian Fry's own account of this period, because it seems like Marino covered it pretty well.

Astounding tale of an unknown chapter in Holocaust history.......2000-05-13

Sometime, not-so-admirable people do incredibly admirable things, and find in themselves qualities that no one, themselves included, knew were there. Such was the case of Varian Fry.

In August 1940, Varian Fry boarded a plane in New York and flew to Spain, and from there to Marseilles, on a mission that would resonate far beyond his imagination.

Fry was an historian, involved with "radical" politics: the Spanish Civil War, the looming Holocaust. He went from observing and writing about the coming crises to actively participating in a way that no one who knew him, or even he himself, would have anticipated. Far from being identified as a humanitarian, he was, in fact, an intellectual snob, a classicist by training.

But he put his life on the line in an effort to save the leading cultural, intellectual, and artistic lights of Europe. Truth to tell, he had no idea what he was getting himself, or his New York sponsors, into, so the evolution of this rather untouchable, remote aesthete into a mover and shaker who consorted with the Marseilles underworld (and enjoyed it!) and worked outside the law is fascinating to observe.

Varian Fry was personally responsible for saving the lives of, among others, Marc Chagall, Lion Feuchtwanger, Victor Serge, Heinrich Mann, André Gide, Franz Werfel, Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Hannah Arendt... He also saved about 1500 other lesser known people. Altogether, in the year he spent in France before being arrested and kicked out by the Vichy puppets of the Gestapo, he turned himself inside out, discovering in himself a depth of caring and feeling that neither he, nor most of the people who knew him, would have suspected was present.

The story itself is so riveting that the book would have to be illiterate not to be absorbing. I found it well-written, with fascinating studies of the characters who worked with, and against Fry. It sort of fades out at the end, but then again, so did Fry, after his return to New York. He died in 1967, unrecognized for his work until the year before his death. In 1996, Israel further declared him "Righteous Among the Nations," the only American so honored.

Absorbing well researched book on Varian Fry , Vichy France.......1999-12-17

If you are interested in the dark events leading to the holocaust, especially French collaboration, this is an absorbing book. For those not quite so familiar with Vichy France it will be an eye opener, for there can be no doubt that many French officials bent over backwards to serve their German masters during those shameful periodic roundups and deportations of the Jews in France. New to this reader, were the descriptions of the horrible conditions of the "refugee camps" in Vichy-controlled France. These were not the infamous concentration camps because detainees could be released, but they were, nonetheless, death camps simply because of shameful conditions and inhuman neglect. In fact, some 3,000 Jews and non- Jews died in those camps in southern France because of the atrocious conditions.

But French Vichy officials were not the only villains. Americans may be surprised to learn just how anti-Semitic U.S. officialdom was during the early years. One could argue that were it not for the openly anti-Semitic treatment of Jews by our own State Department there would be no book written about Varian Fry. If all of the US officials in France, in the Embassy and various consulates, had a mind set to save the Jews it is quite likely thousands more could have been saved. Varian Fry filled a void. He was fighting two battles, the enemy in France and the enemy at home, in the form of the State Department. It was a shameful period, only fairly recently recognized by former Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

This book, about Varian Fry's rescue of the Jews under the auspices of the American Emergency Rescue Committee, raises some questions. Why was he not recognized sooner? And why did many of those Jews rescued seem to turn their backs on him, once saved? Part of the answer is simply that Fry is not a very heroic figure, not even particularly likable. For some he was distant, not easy to know, but he did what he had to do at the time and that did not include being popular with everyone. It is unfortunate that personality flaws probably did play a role early on in the assessment of his role in that period. Even after reading this book, I cannot shake an ambivalent view of Fry as a tragic figure caught very much by accident in an heroic period. Yet, what he did rightfully makes him a hero.

One must read this book to better understand that tragic period and place. Marseilles was the end of a funnel at the beginning of the war. Jews from all over Europe were spilling into that port city, desperate to get out, their backs against the Mediterranean wall, but not a non-Jewish friend in sight to help. Enter a few good people like Fry. It would suffice to be a hero at that time in that place simply by feeling compassion. Elie Wiesel expressed it when he said, "In those times one climbed to the summit of humanity simply by remaining human."

There were other heros and heroines to be sure, the cooperative police inspector, the compassionate Prefet official. I had just finished reading Mary Jayne Gold's Memoir of Marseilles, 1940-1941 in which she recounts her version of that same rescue effort. My feeling is that she deserves a little better treatment than Marino gave her. The fact that Fry may have dismissed her should not diminish her contribution. Although deceased now after a long life, she genuinely felt that those were really the only useful years of her life. (See Amazon.com for review of her book, "Crossroads Marseilles, Nineteen Hundred and Forty" by Mary Jayne Gold)

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Policy Review, published by Hoover Institution Press on February 1, 2000. The length of the article is 2728 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: Hero and Oddball.(A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry)(Review) (book review)
Author: Christopher Caldwell
Publication: Policy Review (Refereed)
Date: February 1, 2000
Publisher: Hoover Institution Press
Page: 77

Article Type: Book Review

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A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry.(Review) (book review): An article from: American Jewish History

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A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry.(Review) (book review): An article from: American Jewish History
Haim Genizi
Manufacturer: American Jewish Historical Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008J93TW
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from American Jewish History, published by American Jewish Historical Society on March 1, 2000. The length of the article is 1229 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: A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry.(Review) (book review)
Author: Haim Genizi
Publication: American Jewish History (Refereed)
Date: March 1, 2000
Publisher: American Jewish Historical Society
Volume: 88 Issue: 1 Page: 136

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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