When Baby Boom Women Retire:

Book Description

Fewer than 20% of Baby Boom women will experience a secure retirement. Marriage, education, occupation, home ownership--these variables predict their future. Possession of all four indicates retirement security, and absence of any increases risk of old-age poverty. This riveting sociological study also examines the social relations and structures that will determine the retirement experience, options, and decisions for more than 40 million Baby Boom women. These women's material base and social status are examined through the use of empirical data, and the key predictors of their retirement are identified. The massive entry of Baby Boom women into the labor force increases the importance of retirement planning for working women. It comes at a time when existing research models and data are outdated and inadequate to effectively predict their future retirement experience. Over the past 30 years, American men and their spouses have benefited from the linear, undifferentiated model of the traditional male retirement. For the Baby Boom generation, however, the nature of work has changed significantly. The current retirement model may not serve Baby Boom men as well as in the past, let alone Baby Boom women. In contrast, this book offers a new, dynamic model that considers the social and work structures influencing women's lives and that accurately reflects the predictors and parameters of Baby Boom women's retirement.

Customer Reviews:

A good analysis of baby boom women in retirement.......2001-10-31

Nancy Dailey focuses exclusively on the economic aspects of upcoming women baby boom retirement in the United States because this is the first generation of women who have spent a majority of their adult years in the labor force. In light of these employment patterns Dailey poses the compelling question "Have baby boom women earned their right to retire?". Her research findings indicate that the majority of baby boom women will not be financially ready to retire when time arrives. Despite the advancements of women in the labor force, women will remain dependent on the help of others. The inequity of wages between men and women combined with women caregiving responsibities which often entails interruptions in years worked penalize women in retirement. The current Social Security system is predicated on masculine assumptions of long-term stable employment that fails to acknowledge the unique circumstances of working women.

Although Dailey presents a good base of statistical research, I believe the weakness of this study is her failure to investigate possible policy recommendations to alleviate disadvantages to women in retirement. At the end of the book Dailey only devotes 3/4 of a page to solutions but there deserves to be more.

Overall, this book poses a good analysis of the problem but fails to follow through in policy recommendations. Regardless, it is a good read. This topic is so important. It is too bad this doesn't receive more mainstream media coverage.

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WHEN BABY BOOM WOMEN RETIRE (HB)
Nancy Dailey
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORR27I

Book Description

This stunning narrative marked the turning point in the writing career of Frederick Forsyth, who subsequently wrote The Dogs of War and The Day of the Jackal. Previously, Forsyth had been a journalist but his book on Biafra marked his remarkable debut as an author. Largely forgotten today, Biafra was a break-away province of Nigeria and the scene of a bloody civil war in the 1960s. Biafra's population largely consisted of the minority Ibo people, who were in revolt against Nigeria's majority Hausa and Fulani people. While the world community today looks with more favor on secessionist regimes, in the 1960s, both East and West united against Biafra, with only France providing assistance to the rebels.

Biafra's defeat was followed by a series of massacres by both official and mutinous Nigerian troops, further compounded by disease and famine. This disturbing work has been unavailable for 20 years, but now has come back into print when its relevance to a world of civil wars and ethnic cleansing is greater than ever. This narrative of Third World civil strife and Great Power duplicity is made even more compelling by the skills of a master storyteller.

Customer Reviews:

Bloody Story, Dry Read.......2006-06-30

It's hard imagining a holocaust going on at the same time as the Age of Aquarius, but that's what a young Frederick Forsyth presents in this, his first book and to date only non-fiction effort. It details the systematic massacre of the people of Biafra from 1967-1969 as they attempted, ultimately unsuccessfully, to break away from Nigeria. Originally published in 1969 as the conflict still raged, "The Biafra Story" was re-released in 2001 with a new afterward.

Forsyth's effort, however noble in intention, is a far cry from the pulse-pounding prose he soon perfected as a writer of spy fiction. As a longtime Forsyth fan who knew about the book from reading the author's bio in book flaps, I was definitely curious about it, and perhaps too expectant of excellence. After all, Forsyth not only had a compelling human drama here, he was on the ground as a journalist in Biafra and Nigeria for much of it. Expecting a real-life horror tale to read like a Forsyth thriller may be perverse, but it beats the bland recitation of dates and casualty numbers you get here.

The war, as Forsyth tells it, was largely between two tribes that found themselves together in the new country of Nigeria after the British gave them their sovereignty: the enlightened, educated, industrious Christianized Ibos and the shiftless, nasty Mecca-gazing Hausas, who persecuted the Ibos until they had enough and tried to carve out a country of their own, Biafra, on Nigeria's eastern coast.

Why the hatred from the Hausas? Forsyth ascribes it to rank jealousy, though a more logical explanation may lie in the fact when the Europeans came, the Hausas found themselves being shipped off to slavery while the Ibos prospered. That may be a generalization as unfair as Forsyth's, but a problem with "The Biafra Story" is you get little else but generalizations.

Forsyth presents what amounts to a prosecutorial screed, delivered in the ponderous style of a bewigged magistrate rather than a sweat-stained reporter in the field. "In war there are bound to be innocent victims, occasional excesses, here and there a wanton brutality conducted by soldiers of a low level," he writes. "But seldom has such a remarkable pattern of bestality [sic] been established over such a wide territory by such diverse army units."

It's hard to be objective with a slaughter like this, but Forsyth doesn't try. He presents the Biafran leader, Colonel Ojukwu, as a study in perfection, never mind his failures on the battlefield and on the diplomatic front. He goes after the then-government of his own Great Britain, who supported Nigeria unreservedly, at great length and at cost to the focus of the story. As he goes on in this vein a while, you wonder which he is more bent on: saving Biafra or bringing down the Harold Wilson regime in London?

Occasionally you get a glimmer of the real human face of the suffering of Biafra, as in a Time magazine account Forsyth quotes. But most of the time Forsyth gets bogged down writing about mercenary etiquette and the politics of airlifting food to starving Biafrans.

Perhaps the fact Forsyth was so close to the suffering made it hard for him to write objectively or dispassionately, which is a point for him as a person. But his raging against the machine grows tired and tinny, and the fact his cause is so just only makes one feel guilty getting bored reading it.

A touching book.......2005-06-01

I have read most of Forsyth's books and this is the first book where he treated a major conflict, especially one that is not of the western world. Overall it was very insightful and life DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST, SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL, it gives the reader the opportunity to understand African conflicts and the pattern of genocides that have taken place or taking place in the continent.

The best chronicle of the suffering of the igbo people.......2003-02-28

Mr. Forsyth in this book became the voice of millions of suffering Biafrans whose sin was a determination to exist against all odds.

His analysis captured the brutality of the Nigerian soldiers while the rest of the world fell victim to the deceit of the pronouncements of the Commander of the Nigerian Armed Forces...General Yakubu Gowon.

Unjustly forgotten classic of the Biafran War.......2002-05-02

Forsyth is known for his later works the "Day of the Jackal", "Odessa File" and "Dogs of War". This though is his first book and in many ways superior to the rest.

A non-fiction detailed description of the Biafran war, Forsyth pulls no punches describing the valiant but fruitless fight by the Ibo tribe to secede from Nigeria. Outnumbered, outgunned and out financed by the central government, the Ibo finally fell because of the support of the European powers for Nigeria.

Forsyth does a wonderful job in giving us a journalist eye view of the conflict which eventually became known more for the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Ibo. A long forgotten classic that has never been outdone by his later novels.

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Genesis de una Leyenda Africana / The Making of an African Legend: The Biafra Story (Best Seller)
Frederick Forsyth
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 8497930452

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The Making of an African Legend: The Biafra Story
Frederick Forsyth
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Nigeria | Africa | History | Subjects | Books
West Africa | Africa | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 014004468X

Customer Reviews:

Covers the Ever-Important Public Relations.......2005-12-24

This guide to public relations helps nonprofits garner support for their organization, increase membership and increase use of their services.

Promoting Issues & Ideas: A Guide to Public Relations for Nonprofit Organizations

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Promoting Issues & Ideas: A Guide to Public Relations for Nonprofit Organizations

Manufacturer: Foundation Center
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0879545941

Book Description

Now, drawing on hundreds of interviews and previously untapped sources, the author gives a hair-raising account of the trumpeter's dark journey.

Customer Reviews:

"Face of an angel, heart of a demon".......2007-07-27

I'd had vague recognition of the name Chet Baker until a trip to Amsterdam a year ago. Across from our hotel--now owned by a major chain--stood a plaque noting that Baker had died on that spot in 1988. I soon learned that in 1988, that area was among the worst of Europe's Skid Rows and that Baker had fallen from the window above to his death.

This book, if you can get through it all without being completely disgusted, is not at all flattering to the man. He recorded hundreds of records, very few any good due to his drug addictions and abhorrent version of a work ethic. But boy, when he was good, he was awesome. Often dismissed as a pale white version of Miles Davis, he attracted admirers of both sexes with his boyish looks and sad songs that, at his best, seemed to flow effortlessly from his trumpet.

Still, the book goes on too long, hence the three stars. We learn, with increasing incredulity, what a despicable person Baker was--absentee father, abusive husband and lover (often at the same time), thief, burglar, arsonist, rapist, forger, drug smuggler, literal pusher (he injected at least one person with heroin against her will). And those were with his friends! About the only thing he didn't do was murder (although he did secretly dispose of a shooting buddy who OD'd on him, dumping it in an alley). And, of course, there were the drugs; taking more than 200 crushed-up pills a day, the only place he didn't inject himself was his eyeball. To add to this incredible list of sordid behaviors, he vehemently refused over and over again to get tested for AIDS, despite his penchant for needle-sharing in the most unseemly of communities.

By the time of Baker's death in 1988, he is so pathetic one ALMOST feels sorry for him. Toothless, gaunt and ever cruel to everyone who ever reached out to him, even his fans looked for foul play as the reason behind the death of the otherwise indestructible Chet Baker. Only a concrete post crushing his head seemed to finish the job he'd started so many years before. (The contrast between Baker on the front and back cover photographs illustrates the toll on his physical appearance, never mind the rest of him.)

I have since borrowed a copy of In Paris: Barclay Sessions 1955-1956, which is a lovely album from sessions recorded in a relatively sober period in the mid-1950s. Still, the ugliness of the artist precludes full enjoyment of the album. In the end, it's just sad.

Valentine.......2007-07-07

Having just finished "Deep in a Dream" I want to mention a few thoughts.
As a read, it has a tension throughout. Odd for a biography when the ending is known at the outset. I believe it's created by the high level of research and the writer's editing choices of that level of detail.
I chose the book because of my having seen Chet Baker. Once.
It was 1966. There is a picture in the book from that appearance.
Having seen perhaps many hundred's of performances by many different jazz artists that one was the real deal. As a musical-human performance. The reputation of jazz is that it is all about improvising. That is seldom the case in my listening life. Only a small percentage have it and use it. Chet Baker is one of those rare ones.
The song has haunted me ever since. As " My Funny Valentine " has stayed with so many other folk. The conflict's in the book are tough to read.
The seeming lack of redemption for Chet's life...........It's rough but a worthwhile read. I do think Mr. Gavin must of been glad to be done with the project. I hope he worked on something a bit lighter afterward.

Be prepared to be radically disillusioned........2005-08-15

Just a glance at the front and back covers tells you quite a bit about Chet Baker. On the front he's an almost singularly good-looking young man, the equal of Hollywood actors of the day. On the back he looks like a corpse that's neglected to lie down and stop moving. Jazz, travel, pain, and heroin. That's Chet Baker's biography. He was a right bastard and if someone did push him they probably had a pretty good reason, played one hell of a gorgeous trumpet though.

Hatred........2005-05-31

I'm curious why someone who apparently thinks Chet Baker is a no-talent hack, would go to all the trouble of writing a biography of him?

After stating early on that Baker's horn playing was just a pale imitation of others, his voice was weak, etc. Mr. Gavin contradicts himself based on other peoples reviews of later performances.

It's really got nothing to do with Chet's music here anyways, it's just a book demonizing him as a person pretty much.

While it's interesting to see the life Chet led, the book over all just seems like an attack on a man who isn't even around to defend himself.

If the idea was just to make a buck off a dead celebrity, James Gavin would have done well to choose a celebrity that more people are interested in.

If there's a reason for Mr. Gavin's apparent vendetta against Chet Baker, that story might make for more interesting reading.

Synopisis: Chet Baker was a junkie and he hurt a lot of people.
That's about all you're going to learn here, and I said it in a sentence. Mr. Gavin tells us over and over and needs 448 pages to do so.

The companion CD 'Deep in a Dream' pretty well disproves James Gavin's critiques of Baker's talent, and gives a far more important picture of Chet Baker as a truly gifted and important artist.

Skip the book, get the CD.

Pityfull mr.gavin ........2004-11-30

Ooooooo, mr.gavin, if you can reach 1/10000000000000000000, glory and popularity, and geniousity, of Mr. CHET BAKER.

Better listen Chet`s, music and be quiet please!!

Deep in a Dream: La larga noche de Chet Baker / The Long Night of Chet Baker (Reservoir)

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Deep in a Dream: La larga noche de Chet Baker / The Long Night of Chet Baker (Reservoir)
James Gavin
Manufacturer: Mondadori (IT)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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

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DEEP IN A DREAM: THE LONG NIGHT OF CHET BAKER.

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DEEP IN A DREAM: THE LONG NIGHT OF CHET BAKER.
James. Gavin
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NU53WW

Customer Reviews:

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......2006-01-27

Unlike the last reviewer I was excited to read the book. Unfortunately it was a big dissapointment. I was bored to tears while reading this poorly written remake of every Native American story ever written, with none of the originality. It is truly surprising to see the level of writing published today, this is horrible.

The Lakota way of life.......2004-01-07

I was sceptical to read this book because it was assigned to me to read for one of my criminal justice courses. However, I was really absorbed in the story of the Native American Tribe, the Lakotas. The book is written from an "Americanized" point of view. It tells a story of the authors great grandmother and her life as a Lakota woman. There are many fun and interesting things that happen to the Turgle Lung Woman. She speaks of her courting rituals, battle rituals, labor divisions between men and women, children roles.
There are interesting stories about homosexuality, adultury, death, commitment to the tribe and war.
Definitely an interesting book that contains historical facts and the culture of the Lakota tribe.

The Eloquence Within.......2002-02-28

A beautiful minds, loving words, about family, about a people, about a way of life. This story combined with the beauty in word of " Bead on an Anthill " Delphine's first book sets the mind and soul, for a journey into one's self.
In the female voice of the Lakota, live the life set in the beauty that is the Northern Plains, of this Turtle Island.
The writting style is such , to savor each word as if it could fill you with the images it creates.
This is what award winning writing should be about.........

Delphine Red Shirt. Turtle Lung Woman's Granddaughter.(Book Review): An article from: World Literature Today

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Delphine Red Shirt. Turtle Lung Woman's Granddaughter.(Book Review): An article from: World Literature Today
Mary E. Adams
Manufacturer: University of Oklahoma
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by University of Oklahoma on July 1, 2003. The length of the article is 561 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: Delphine Red Shirt. Turtle Lung Woman's Granddaughter.(Book Review)
Author: Mary E. Adams
Publication: World Literature Today (Refereed)
Date: July 1, 2003
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Volume: 77 Issue: 2 Page: 152(1)

Article Type: Book Review

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