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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House
by
Omarosa Manigault Newman
Grady
, August 15, 2018
‘He loved conflict, chaos, and confusion: he loved seeing people argue or fight.’ Omarosa Manigault Newman is the former Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison in Donald Trump’s White House, and was an aide in the Office of Presidential Personnel and the Office of the Vice President in the Clinton White House. She has served as an adjunct professor in the Howard University School of Business. Prior to joining the Trump administration, Omarosa served as a chaplain in the California State Military Reserve. She currently serves in pastoral ministry at The Sanctuary at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida. This fast reading book is what many have been waiting to appear. In this time of ‘fake news’ and the method in which Trump has elected to communicate – Tweets on Twitter – the little truth we hear from how the dysfunctional President and cabinet and even Congress operate has been the evening news as reported with gusto by brave newscasters such as Rachel Maddow. Now we have the inside story from the courageous Omarosa Manigault Newman who not only served in the White House under Trump but also was with him on THE APPRENTICE and other television shows that brought Trump to power. Omarosa discusses in raw detail about Trump’s mental instability, his racism and anti-feminism, is bigotry and his lies, the N-word tape, his interaction with Mike Pence and Paul Ryan and Melania and Ivanka and Jared Kushner, the N-word tape, and the manipulation of the FBI and investigations into the 2016 scandal. And on and on. It is all here in immensely readable form – written by a very bright lady who had the courage to leave the Trump dynasty before it self implodes. If for no other reason than catharsis, read this book. It somehow tames the fear we all have about Trump simply by putting the facts in black and white.
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One Mother's Journey: Creating My Family through In Vitro Fertilization
by
Jennifer Prudenti
Grady
, March 21, 2017
‘Today is the day Marty and I will conceive our children and this will be the start of our beautiful family’ New York author Jennifer Prudenti is a marketing professional who has worked in the music business, publishing and television. Her major achievement – in her eyes – is the successful birthing of twins by In Vitro Fertilization and that is the theme of this immensely readable, instructive, at times hilarious, and touching book ONE MOTHER’S JOURNEY. As informed as the general public is about Planned Parenthood, birth control methods, adoption, fertility medications, the pros and cons of at-home birthing versus the various techniques of in hospital deliveries and nurseries, types of nursing etc, few know the facts and process of in vitro fertilization. This book not only makes that comprehensible, but it also allows couples who desire a family to follow step by step the frustrations of encountering the need for IVF and the stages and details of the process. Jennifer makes that very clear – with some valuable insights from her husband Marty. Before entering the story of the book the reader should be aware that Jennifer has provided an outstanding Glossary of all the medical terms she uses throughout the book. For example, and for those for whom IVF is shadowy. Jennifer writes ‘IVF – In Vitro Fertilization - a viable alternative to for those of us who cannot have a baby without assistance. With this an egg and sperm are fertilized manually in a laboratory dish, and once the fertilization is successful the embryo is physically inserted into the uterus.’ Jennifer relates her experiences with her reproductive organs prior to coming to the subject matter of the book – her experience Chlamydia infection, an ectopic pregnancy treated laparoscopically with concurrent intra-abdominal bleeding – all leaving her with the concept that normal pregnancy and childbirth was now only a dream. To gain the flavor of how well Jennifer writes, she states – ‘I knew at age 25 that I would never be able to conceive a child without the direct medical intervention of In Vitro Fertilization. This information was relayed to me following an ectopic pregnancy that I experienced that nearly cost me my life but in the end cost me both Fallopian tubes. When I first learned of this complication, I did not fully grasp the full implications, and since starting a family was not exactly on the top of my list, it was not something that I paid close attention to. Now, fast-forward 13 years and my husband, Marty and I are anxious to get started on our family. I met Marty more than ten years after this occurred, when I was about 36 years old. By that time, I had of course survived a series of failed relationships and reached a point where I was mentally ready to settle down.’ And from this point on comes the story – a journey really with every step of the process of IVF described in detail clinically and emotionally (each chapter includes a postscript written by husband Marty) that resulted in the birth of their twins Sophia and Michael by C-section. All of the ups downs of this successful IVF production of beautiful twins is shared in a manner that makes this fine book a primer for any couple considering IVF. Jennifer (and also Marty) write very well, making this clinically informative book a warmly entertaining novel. An absolute must read for all couples in similar straits as well as for all readers who simply love a fine book!
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King Pawn
by
Raj Nellooli
Grady
, August 16, 2015
‘Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.’ - Friedrich Nietzsche Indian author Raj Nellooli (born in Kerala grew up in Trivandrum) completed his studies with a Masters degree, leading to working abroad in banking, as a management consultant and director of multinational banks, oil and gas corporations, and international NGOs throughout the globe. He is a writer not only of novels and short stories and business articles but also Indian musical compositions! He is a member of Mensa International and a visiting Professor for MBA programs. As an author profoundly concerned about and involved in the crises such as the story of this excellent book, Raj opens his tale with an address to the reader that invites quoting: ‘This is a story, not history. So the characters and incidents are not real. I have used Syria as the place to tell the story. It is a story like the Arabian Nights, but it is happening in today’s world. It is a story about different types of rulers who rule, protect, patronize, intimidate, terrorize, or kill their subjects and others. We call them presidents, sultans, ministers, and intelligence agencies. Set amid a civil war, this is a story about money, power, and greed, not about democracy, dictatorship, religion, or civil rights. It is the story of conflicts engineered by big political ambitions that destroy small people, their delicate social fabric, and the caring cultures nurtured over centuries. So this drama is global. War is about extreme behaviours. Rightly or wrongly, strong people lead wars and change our world for better or for worse. Leaders on opposite sides often act the same way. Who becomes the hero and who the villain depends only on who wins and survives to write the history. I was at first surprised that many of my characters are destructive, negative, and take extreme positions and risks. They have different values, act extreme, and play at the limits of aggression and cruelty. That is not typical or dominant human behaviour. But those who start and continue conflicts destroy first to build something different. The silent majority is not part of the history at that time. They lose out and become political or cannon fodder. My characters represent that reality. I could not have told this story any saner than the brutal reality of a modern war. Like everyone in a conflict, my characters take strong positions that they feel are justified. I have no side to take. No one wins in a war. Stories are as old as us, Once upon a time there was a country called Syria and many rulers in different parts of the world called presidents, sultans, prime ministers and intelligence agencies. Many people worked for them and they were called pawns…’ With this degree of excellence in writing we the readers are assured that the upcoming story will ring true. The synopsis distills this: ‘The college-dropout son of an American professor and a Syrian mother who fled her home country, Robert Frost has two primary enemies: the US Army for unfairly dismissing him and the Syrian regime for destroying his mother’s family during the 1982 Hama uprising. Worse still, his wife has left him, taking their two daughters with her. Frost becomes Iftikar, a mercenary, and accepts a high-paying mission to destabilize Syria and topple its regime. Unaware of the complexity of Syria and the treacherous plots of his mysterious employers, he hopes the money will help him win back his family. As he moves through Syria on a journey of mayhem, he finds himself in Palmyra, the oldest oasis on the Silk Road; the Byzantine citadel in Aleppo; the marijuana fields of Beqaa Valley; the world’s largest restaurant in Damascus; the seafarers’ island of Arwad; and Russia’s only naval base in the Middle East, Tartous. Will Iftikar’s actions pave the way to democracy in Syria or enthrone new masters? Set against the backdrop of the current Syrian war, this novel is an unsettling tale of the battles, shaped by immense political ambitions that destroy small people and their even smaller lives. It immortalizes the laments of the Syrian people through an intricate plot, convincing details, and many unforgettable characters.’ Not only does Raj write with intensity and credibility, he engages our minds as well as our hearts, and that is only one reason this book will flourish. Some wise person will make a film of it.
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From Silicon Valley to Swaziland How One Couple Found Purpose & Adventure in an Encore Career
by
Rick Walleigh
Grady
, May 22, 2015
`We both wanted to `give something back.' We both wanted to be working on something of obvious benefit to society.' Both Wendy and Rick Walleigh have impressive credentials as successful career in the new world. Wendy, with an M.S. in Communications from Boston University, and a B.S. in Psychology from Tufts University, succeeded in high-technology marketing and sales in computer networking hardware and software companies as Director of OEM Marketing at 3Com Corporation. Her responsibilities included product marketing and management, branding, marketing communications, sales and sales support. Rick, with degrees form Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Harvard Business School, worked in the high-technology industry, in executive roles in high-technology companies and was a Partner in management consulting at Ernst & Young for twelve years even publishing articles in The Harvard Business Review. In 2005 Rick and Wendy `commercially retired' and instead went to Africa to do volunteer work for TechnoServe, an international economic development non-governmental organization. This book is about that `change' - leaving the world of work for the world of self-fulfillment in a new zone of comfort. This inspiring book offers so many insights into what `young' retirees (and we all know who we are) can do with good health, keen minds and energy, and the desire to help the world at least maintain if not progress. Rick and Wendy moved to Africa - South Africa, Kenya, Swaziland, and more and offered their hearts and minds and backs to helping where help is so desperately needed. It is a study of `transitioning' form a life of comfort to the colorful but struggling life in Africa and the joys of feeling the `make a difference' that so many of us wish for in aiding world problems. It is a memoir and more of a journey, replete with excellent photographs and comments about philosophy and the memories this adventure from their hearts, that make s this a book the deserves a very broad audience. Highly recommended, Grady Harp, May 15
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War Babies: The Generation That Changed America
by
Pells, Richard
Grady
, October 08, 2014
Buried by the Baby Boomers: Pells shines a light on the War Babies Author Richard Pells is an honored historian and writer having received his B.A. from Rutgers University in 1963 and his Ph.D. in history from Harvard in 1969 where he taught for three years. He now is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Texas in Austin. His many articles and writings honor his specialty - 20th century American cultural history, with a special focus on the impact of American culture on other countries. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, as well as 6 Fulbright chairs and senior lectureships. His books have been reviewed in Newsweek, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New Republic. I also contribute articles regularly to magazines and newspapers including the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Los Angeles Times, and the International Herald Tribune. Pertinent to this book is the fact that he has lived and lectured all over Europe, as well as in Turkey, Southeast Asia, Australia, Mexico, and Brazil. It was these experiences living abroad that stimulated his interest in how America affected other people's cultures, and how foreign cultures affected America - themes emphasized in both of his books, `NOT LIKE US' and `MODERNIST AMERICA'. Now he steps into the spotlight with WAR BABIES: THE GENERATION THAT CHANGED AMERICA - long overdue exploration of those Americans born between 1939 and 1945 - the overall angst and contributions by writers, and leaders in movies, music, journalism, sports, and politics. Perhaps being one of these War Babies contributes to the enthusiasm this reader has for this book. It is like a visit home to childhood and then a survey of all of the important figures bred during the time of WW II and post WW II era. His journey is reflected in the four sections of his book: the war babies produced the culture and political attitudes that persist to this day; The war babies were the architects of a value system less communal and more private, more suspicious of the benefits of government policy, political and organizations of all types; the war babies' perspective on America was darker and more pessimistic - a skepticism that characterizes contemporary American culture and politics; the attitudes of war babies was exemplified in their movies, music , journalism and politics, that their descendants absorbed but did not originate. His book is divided into significant chapters exploring the following: A child's eye view of World War II, Growing up in Cold War America, The limits of McCarthyism, The war babies and the Postwar Media, The revolution in movies, Reshaping America: the politics and journalism of the war baby generation, and the Legacy of the War Babies. Peel brings to our attention many things even those of us who are war babies have forgotten - that famous people such as musicians and composers like Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, and Simon and Garfunkel, with film directors like Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese, with actors like Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Faye Dunaway, Harrison Ford, Lily Tomlin, Christopher Walken, Harvey Keitel, Martin Sheen and Joe Pesci; with athlete/activists like Muhammad Ali and Billie Jean King; with journalists like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Tom Brokaw, George Will and Roger Ailes; influential politicians and humanitarians like Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, Tom Hayden, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Richard Holbrooke, John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi. By bringing all of this and so much more to our attention, the era of War Babies becomes far more important to our national image and thinking. A fascinating book, brilliantly written. Grady Harp, October 14
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Putting Together The Entrepreneurial Puzzle: The Ten Pieces Every Business Needs to Succeed
by
Mary E Marshall
Grady
, February 11, 2014
`All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.' Walt Disney Mary E. Marshall speaks with the authority she has learned and earned. She is a dynamic thinker and writer and what she has accomplished in this book is what every person in business dreams - a path to success, whether from the CEO chair of a huge corporation who wants to stay on top and ahead of the game, or those many minds searching for a recipe for starting a small business and seeing it actually succeed. Mary's credentials speak clearly: she is herself an entrepreneur who has spent her career making small businesses into successful ventures, both as a CEO and business owner herself, and as an executive coach and consultant. Mary also shares her expertise with Social Venture Partners and teaches a class for entrepreneurs at The Small Business Administration. In January of 2014 she was nominated by the SBA as a candidate for the 2014 SBA Small Business Awards Competition, Minority Small Business Champion category. Breathe..... To review a book of the importance and magnitude of PUTTING TOGETHER THE ENTREPRENEURIAL PUZZLE it is tempting to summarize Mary's secrets: that would in many ways defeat the purpose of this book - a volume that depends on reading the complete tome in the sequence she has written it as each section builds to the next one and in many ways is the way to follow the leader in piecing together the pieces of this puzzle. Mary introduces her topic with some heady facts about the atmosphere of business today - the growing proliferation of small businesses that are producing the resource for employment and output in a time when the mega corporations are suspect in their management and approach to the public. What Mary accomplishes in this book is to teach us to think from the bottom up - with an emphasis on the goal and end product to help us avoid the inevitable pitfalls of the road to entrepreneurial success. `My wish for you as you apply what you learn in this book is that you develop productive employees who are aligned with your vision and values, that you attract happy customers, and that you make lots of money and have a lot of fun along the way.' Sound like pie in the sky thinking? Then read this book and become convinced that Mary knows the final look of the successful entrepreneurial puzzle. Her puzzle pieces (without delving into the meat of the book -that is your job) are: Intentional purpose, Intentional culture, the CEO's role, Hiring, HR and you employee handbook, Marketing, Sales, Financial metrics, Strategy + Operations=Execution, and Exit strategy. The amount of useful information within each of these `piece' is staggeringly helpful. Read this book and realize why some people make a business successful and the reasons others fail to appreciate the puzzle pieces. A brilliant contribution to the business world. Grady Harp, February 14
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Painful Secrets
by
Tim Hutchinson
Grady
, March 22, 2013
An Emotionally Immersing Memoir Tim Hutchinson has essentially written two books in this one volume titled PAINFUL SECRETS: one is a profoundly moving study of a young boy sexually abused by a friend of his completely dysfunctional family, who finds no support from a distant and abusive father and an uninvolved mother, a member of a large family where the children are treated as excess unwanted baggage and spend their childhoods in multiple `shelters' - in other words a completely emotionally abandoned and isolated boy who turns to crime out of need for financial support and as a means of reacting with uncontrollable anger and physical abuse to lash out at a world that refuses to accept him. The other book is a version of a self-help book - teaching from experience why living on the wrong side of the law brings only defeat and that turning life into a positive direction brings personal fulfillment. What makes this book work in both ways is the manner in which it is written. It succeeds as a rollercoaster ride of a novel, but when the reader remembers that this is a memoir and that every word is true, it succeeds in providing a handbook for young troubled teens who are in desperate need of emotional and paternal support in order to find meaning to life that has been eluding them. Tim Hutchinson is at his best when recreating his past history - a battleground of parental abuse, complete lack of self esteem, meeting the challenges of life with association with gangs, drugs, guns, prostitution, and even a transient alignment with the Ku Klux Klan in the Twin Cities. The beatings, the incarcerations, the near death episodes, suicide attempts, the fully planned mass killings in a school where `those that have' bullied him (thankfully not carried out), inability to form meaningful relationships, failed marriage, loss of a child (thought dead but in reality simply withheld by a trashy ignorant mother) - all of this leads to temporary jobs usually ending because of inappropriate behavior and a life that has become an ugly flat line of despair. Enter a girl named Jennifer who saw his innate goodness and an encounter with a Holocaust survivor named Lustig who remains Tim's guardian counselor and mentor and helps Tim see the world from a different vantage. Burying his heinous past with a new identity works for a while until Tim realizes that the only way to survive is to accept his past and change his perspective and add religion, marriage to Jennifer (a bright daughter of a physician) and four children, etc to make a new life - one that places his lack of a loving family relationship as a child to that of a caring father and traditional family values unit he always craved. Yet trouble is not over - Tim suffers from a gastrointestinal disorder that is near fatal until after failed medical attempts to turn his dwindling physical being around, his body corrects itself. Tim now has committed his life to ministering to disturbed teens and working with down and outers who need guidance and a mentor - much the same as Lustig formed for Tim. The first 200 pages of this 318-page book are compelling and fascinating and paced breathlessly. Unfortunately that last third of the book, that part when he has turned his life around and the world becomes positive, is less well written. The reason lies in the manner in which Hutchinson deals with his GI distress. He never tells us what this mysterious disorder is - even when it finally subsides - nor does he share the medication he needs (that turns into a countrywide internet connection with caring people who help him with finding the meds), but instead his story becomes a vitriolic diatribe against the medical profession and far too much of an embittered sad sack story on which to end the book. This last addendum adds little to his mission to present a book that is meant to help those in like need and instead draws focus, poorly and certainly not wholly described, to a personal vendetta against a medical system that refuses to meet his demands. In the end this book is well worth reading and as for the quality of writing it is excellent. It may appeal to a wider audience because of the broad focus of the information shared. It will be interesting to see if Tim Hutchinson takes his obvious gift for writing and turns form memoir to novel. It seems he would be highly successful along those lines. Grady Harp
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China Study The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted & the Startling Implications for Diet Weight Loss & Long
by
T Colin Campbell
Grady
, February 02, 2013
Harsh realities - we are what we eat, if given the choice.... In an age of crises, of media blitz campaigns both written and in that ominous Cloud where all data on everything and everyone is stored and available for dissecting, this volume THE CHINA STUDY by Doctors Campbell is fresh and illuminating. Early on in this tome we read, `'Hippocrates said, `There are, in effect, two things: to know and to believe one knows. To know is science. To believe on e knows is ignorance.' And what follows in this book is a close examination or scrutiny of nutrition and how it affects health and disease. Though the book is lengthy and dense it is surprisingly easy to read and understand. The Campbells wade through the various obsessions about weight control that come from (on the positive side) nutritionists and health gurus, to companies who are involved in the `health industry' with such plans as prepared meals for dieting, groups who gather like AA clones in the often lost battle to get thin, to `scientific articles' that take a small study and show us why we should avoid certain foods only to bow out within a year or so having found another wayward dietary measure that guarantees health, etc. This book shows how the growing epidemic of obesity in this country has nurtured Medicine Man Wagons who play on the fear of overweight citizens in order to make money - the big culprits being the food industry - and encouraged those lobbyists who pester the national government to foster communication for the good of corporate greed and not for the health of the citizenry. But politics aside (and that is a big part of the message in this study) the main message here is to alter our perception of what foods are healthy and how we can so easily change our eating habits by depending on plants and whole foods instead of animals as our food source. No, this is not a treatise on vegetarianism. Instead this is an explanation about how our preference for animal products (`protein source') is a misconception that has foster the persistent proliferation of cancer, cardiovascular disease, the effect on early aging, obesity, diabetes, and other malfunctions of the human organism. It is an eye-opening study that is certain to benefit all those who commit to the time to read it. At least the reader will be informed as to the misconceptions that the obesity epidemic has fostered. From that point, the progress is up to us. `Eating the right way not only prevents disease but also generates health and a sense of well-being, both physically and mentally.' Grady Harp
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Gathering Strength Conversations with Afghan Women
by
Peggy Kelsey
Grady
, December 15, 2012
A Path to Understanding the Enigma of Afghanistan This beautifully conceived and written book is likely one of the most important books to be published in recent years as it finally serves as a cogent, sensitive, skilled and informed introduction to the true history of Afghanistan as perceived through the brave eyes and minds and memories of Afghan women. Peggy Kelsey has more than written a profoundly interesting book, filled with her own (and some visiting photographers) photographs of places and portraits of the Afghan women she has interviewed during two extended visits to Afghanistan in 2003 and 2010. This book goes far beyond fascinating interviews with all manner of women in that country about which we know little except that we as a nation have been present there `keeping the peace' for an expensive and very long time. After reading Kelsey's book the reader will understand the importance of this country and how it has suffered through great misfortune: there is a reason to extend a helping hand to such a brave people. As Kelsey states, `I was inspired to create the Afghan Women's Project in 2002 after I met with a delegation 14 Afghan women who came to Austin Texas. The women I met were so different from the black and white, sad pictures of Afghan women in the media at that time--these women were multifaceted, diverse from each other and in many ways like you or me. As a professional photographer who has spent time in Asia and the Middle East, I saw that I could provide a more complete picture and understanding of their lives. I visited Afghanistan in 2003 and again in 2010 to photograph and interview women. On the last day of the second trip, I knew the time had come to write a book in order to do justice to the stories and perspectives that the women had shared with me. They wanted me to show that their country was much more than just war and terrorism.' What happens in this book (and happens is the correct verb in this case) is a gradual understanding of the complexities of struggling to survive in a country assaulted by Russian occupation and Taliban control and now dealing with the new government under President Karzai. To open the book, Kelsey gives us her own story of how this book happened and then she proceeds to introduce us to the women she interviewed, women who in many instances took great courage to speak out about their own situation first as women and then about their country. Each of the women interviewed (with a few painful exceptions) is portrayed with one of Kelsey's exquisite photographs. The women are named, enter into a question and answer format (carefully planned by Kelsey) that addresses such topics as the role of women in Afghanistan in a male dominated country where women are little more than hidden possessions of their husbands, where punishments for being seen in public with a burqa or scarf etc can mean arrest, where there is simply nothing resemble women's rights. The book is divided into sections of topics of discussion, such as the elderly care and treatment, women's rights, the life of artists, imprisonment, refugees and how they are housed in neighboring countries when the government changes, voluntary returnees from refugee camps, Islam (in a more sensitive discussion about those religious beliefs than has been offered to date), health workers, education, women in business, sports and fitness for women, the Taliban as in inside story, youth, and women now in Parliament. Kelsey's well-considered questions allow her groups of women to respond in an honest, safe and comfortable manner, and from this atmosphere we learn more about Afghanistan that we thought possible. In addition to being a compelling read, GATHERING STRENGTH provides insights into women's rights and the advances these women have made (and continue to fight for) and the possibility for progress and change and hope that exists. This is a most worthy book that hopefully come to the attention of many: it should be required reading for us all. Grady Harp
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World War D (11 Edition)
by
Dhywood
Grady
, November 04, 2012
Looking at the Drug War Face On This review is from: World War D. The Case against prohibitionism, roadmap to controlled re-legalization (Paperback) WORLD WAR D is a hefty book of 435 pages that serves as a platform for author Jeffrey Dhywood to illuminate his readers on why the use of drugs - whether psychoactive prescription drugs or cocaine or marijuana or heroin or opium or crystal meth, LSD etc - continues to be an ever increasing problem throughout the world. The cost of the illegal or abused drug market creates crime, addiction, organized crime in cartels resulting in smuggling/selling/inducing needless street warfare, and death. In his words, `The out of control illegality of today's so-called `controlled substances' that are being pushed deliberately to the point of un-natural addiction and repeated abuse have made a staggering impact in the degradation of our ever-growing human, social, economic and geopolitical societies. Life as a whole is far less advanced than it used to be - and this is truer NOW, in our current time of increased understanding and technological growth! It's time we stopped making it worse.' Dhywood pleads for altering this trend by legalizing drug sales in a regulated manner and in doing so reverse the problem much the way the repealing prohibition of the sale of alcohol resulted in diminished crime and societal destruction. But who is Jeffrey Dhywood and how did he become such a banner man for the cause of the reversing the problem we currently face in keeping drugs illegal? The only supplied biography states, `Jeffrey Dhywood is a European-born investigative writer, lecturer and public speaker. He earned a master degree in Mathematics and Logics from a prestigious French school before getting involved at various levels of the drug scene, and was closely stricken by the tragedy of drug abuse. Jeffrey Dhywood lived 20 years in the US and is currently living in Latin America. He is also very familiar with Asia, which gives him a good grasp of the global dimension of the War on Drugs, and its global failure. His academic background allows him to bring common sense and sanity to an issue often mired in confusion, misconceptions and preconceptions'. But the author of this book is well informed about pharmacology, biochemistry, and the very pointed field of the effects of all manner of drugs on brain function. He presents exhaustive data on all the forms of drugs including alcohol that affect brain function. And in addition to the pharmacologic data presented here Dhywood details the history of drugs around the globe with more information on the effects of criminalization of drugs on the environment, the human costs of the war on drugs, the corruption, violence, erosion of civil liberties, and the impact on our prisons that results from the fact that obtaining the substances that so many people demand in order to cope with the world can only be accomplished by criminal activity. For this reader the author's own statement of the reason for writing this book is the strongest argument: ` "Word War-D" is the first book to tackle the issue of legalization head-front, offering a pragmatic, practical, and realistic roadmap to global controlled re-legalization of production, distribution and use of psychoactive substances under a multi-tiers "legalize, tax, control, prevent, treat and educate" regime with practical and efficient mechanisms to manage and minimize societal costs. Far from giving up, and far from an endorsement, controlled legalization would be finally growing up; being realistic instead of being in denial; being in control instead of leaving control to the underworld. It would abolish the current regime of socialization of costs and privatization of profits to criminal enterprises, depriving them of their main source of income and making our world a safer place." It can't be summarized more succinctly. This book belongs in the hands of every responsible citizen, whether after reading it the reader agrees or not. At least the seeds of change would be well planted. We must change something, soon. Grady Harp
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Taierzhuang 1938 - Stalingrad 1942
by
Lance Olsen
Grady
, October 31, 2012
`Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.' Santayana There probably could be no better introductory line than this quote form George Santayana which Lance Olsen wisely places at the beginning of this impressive, detailed, scrupulously researched probe into the little known insights into a blind spot in the histories of WW II, blind spots that continue to affect the manner in which nations including America respond to wars today. Though many of the particular battles of WW II are well known and often dramatized in books and on film about events that occurred in both the European and the Asian fronts, the public is either unaware or has not been informed to the early indications of complexities of decisions that could have altered the outcome of WW II. Lance Olsen asks us to consider two basic questions: 1) Why did Japan invade China (as early as 1931) and what difference did that make to WW II? and the corollary to that question Why when Japan intended to invade Siberia (USSR) change her mind and bomb Pearl Harbor instead? And 2) What saved Russia (USSR) form being defeated in a 2 front war against Germany and Japan? A summary response (after reading Olsen's information) reveals that Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor forced the US to enter the war as Allied Forces with China, Great Britain and the USSR in two pronged war against Germany and Japan and that the Pearl Harbor incident prevented the USSR form having to fight both Germany and Japan on 2 fronts. Among the many fascinating aspects of this tough to read by ultimately satisfying survey of the history of WW II is Lance Olsen's thorough examination of the Sino-Japanese War from 1931 - 1938 a portion of history few of us know and a reason behind Japan's decision to attack Pearl Harbor instead of Siberia. The turning point in Japan's failure to conquer China culminated in the battle of Taierzhuang in 1938, and that bears summarizing: The battle involved a Japanese plan to conquer Xuzhou, a major city in the East. However, the Japanese failed to consider the plans of generals Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, who planned to encircle the Japanese in the town of Tai'erzhuang. The Japanese operation started on 24 March. Overconfidence led the Japanese commanders to overlook the thousands of inconspicuous "farmers" in the area, who were affiliated with Li Zongren and cut communication lines and supplies, diverted streams, and ruined rail lines. By late March, supplies and fuels were being dropped from airplanes to Japanese troops, but the quantities were insufficient. On 29 March 1938, a small band of Japanese soldiers tunneled under Tai'erzhuang's walls in an attempt to take the city from within. They were caught by the Nationalist defenders and killed. Over the next week, both sides claimed to hold parts of the city and surrounding area, and many were killed in small arms battles. Finally, the Japanese attacked frontally, failing to consider the greater Chinese numbers. A major encirclement on 6 April, with Chinese reinforcements, preceded a major Japanese defeat and retreat, which the Chinese failed to capitalize upon fully through pursuit due to a lack of mobility. The Chinese captured 719 Japanese soldiers and large quantities of military supplies, including 31 pieces of artillery, 11 armored cars, 8 armored fighting vehicles, 1000 machine guns and 10000 rifles. Amid the celebrations of the victory in Hankow and other Chinese cities, Japan tried to deny and ridiculed the reports of the battle for days. It was reported in the world's newspapers, however, and by mid-April had provoked a Cabinet crisis in Tokyo. The Chinese scored a major victory, the first of the Nationalist alliance in the war. The battle broke the myth of Japanese military invincibility and resulted in an incalculable benefit to Chinese morale. Olsen shares not only an in depth history of Chinese military tactics but he also pays the same degree of attention of the events that lead up to the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 - an equally important turning point in the effects of the outcome of WW II. What Olsen ultimately states is the following; `The purpose of these pages is to balance the books on WW II by providing insight into the blind spot that resulted in so much US blood and treasure being expended in the Korean and Vietnam wars yet not achieving the same objectives. The Korean and Vietnam wars could not be fought and won in the same way that the US had, together with the other Allied Powers, fought and won WW II. Those attacked on 9/11 need to "Know thine enemy and know thyself" to avoid history repeating itself.' And to carry Lance Olsen's studies further we might just want to reflect on the current multiple wars in which the US is engaged.... Grady Harp
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A New Language for Life: Happy No Matter What!
by
Louis Koster
Grady
, October 15, 2012
`I am the source of all that manifests in my life.', October 15, 2012 Louis Koster has written a book that is difficult to categorize. One possible label might be `self-help' book but there are so many of those on the shelves and in the ether of eBooks that, while well devised and meaningful to many, simply rehash the material of `focus your goals. Walk through life like you mean it, etc' - all of which is healthy for start over philosophy, but seem to fall short in actually finding the path to changing our world. Dr. Koster has devoted his life to humanitarianism; he overcame a physical problem with stammering and in doing so he discovered that the primary difficulty we each find in aligning with life is that we try to make external changes without paying attention to our `selves'. His concept of changing how we view ourselves is the basis of this erudite yet warmly supportive book. Some may wonder about the title `New Language': he explains this `When I use the word "language" in this book, I'm not just referring to speaking another tongue such as Italian, French or Japanese. I'm referring to all the influences we have been exposed to that shape who we think we are, or who we think we should be. For example, the messages we received from our family, friends, cultures, education, and religions. I call them our birth languages.' He goes on to share the concept that we need to change the view we have of ourselves. `I believe that the answer is in making a commitment to be happy, fulfilled, and content, no matter what the circumstances of our lives are. This commitment allows you to radically change the view you have of yourself, which leads you to express yourself and experience life in a new way. It allows you to find that unique core within yourself and access it through your own language. A commitment to be happy, no matter what, brings you to a place of oneness of being, where you experience an authentic freedom to be, and your language communicates who you are. You no longer feel entrapped and say `I cant'' or `I'm not capable'. You san `I can'' `I am capable'. I DO have the power to manifest life as I am.' Dr. Koster challenges us to make the choice of being committed to being happy, fulfilled, and satisfied, no matter what the circumstances of our lives. He sees the path of history and civilization leading to a time when we must be whole as ourselves, integrate with our fellow men, and move to the next higher level of being. `Just BEING liberates the human spirit. When you move away form always striving and wanting, you become free to BE.' Throughout his book he references personal experiences with his travels with Doctors without Borders' and his sharing of his medical knowledge by being a physician to those who are in need. There is no set of charts in this book, lessons we must check off a having memorized, exercises or foods we must absorb in order to follow his example. He only encourages us to make the choice to be who we are. Near the end of his book he addresses his view of the future: `NOW is the time, as many indigenous people believe, for human beings of the modern world to CHOOSE and RESPOND to the call of the guardians of wisdom, and allow for the eagle and the condor to reunite and fly together in one sky.' And he sees this as the opportunity to move form darkness to light and enter into the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Oneness. Read this book, discover yourself, trust that discovery, and begin to be happy and fulfilled in being who your are. Grady Harp
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All Told My Art & Life Among Athletes Playboys Bunnies & Provocateurs
by
LeRoy Neiman
Grady
, June 13, 2012
An Autobiography As Colorful As His Paintings In celebration of his 91st birthday on June 8, 2012 Lyons Press has publish a lavishly illustrated autobiography of LeRoy Nieman. Appropriately titled ALL TOLD: MY ART AND LIFE AMONG ATHLETES, PLAYBOYS, BUNNIES, AND PROVOCATEURS the book begins at his beginning in 1919 told with the raucous humor that vibrates in his art, The journey through his life to date includes his associations with Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Dizzy Gillespie, Sylvester Stallone, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro, Peter Jennings, Howard Cosell, Jim McKay and Hugh Heffner. A wild range of consorts? Well, that is how Nieman lived his life. His art, which is generously reproduced in this volume, is instantly recognizable for its splashy color and expressionistic style. His innumerable paintings of sports events including the Olympics, images of such places as the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, Leonard Bernstein conducting, and presidents and athletes, personalities from the arts - all pepper the stories he tells that accompany these images. And the stories and events of his life are no less colorful than his art. One aspect of Nieman that too few people recognize is that his popular works (and the vast number of prints of his works that are for sale in nearly every airport and mall galleries through out the world) are only a part of his output. Included here are his very fine drawings of the human form, such as his truly significant Conte crayon drawing '18th Century Nudes after Boucher, 1956' ad his own possessions such as the Crucifixion (reproduced far too small to appreciate here). For all the wild and explosive color of his popular works there are almost an equal number of fine sketches and small works in pen and ink that reveal his training as a fine artist. Whether the reader will find the art of LeRoy Nieman mundane and non-sophisticated at the start of this book, by book's end the viewer will have a different perspective on the works of LeRoy Nieman. He may not go down as a great painter but he will always be known as a famous populist who seems to paint as much for his public as he does for his muse. Grady Harp, June 12
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The Road from Morocco
by
Wafa Faith Hallam
Grady
, March 15, 2012
Very Strong Start, Tapers Off Into Self Indulgence That Wafa Faith Hallam has the skills to write is very evident in the first portion of this book, her personal life laid bare as a memoir in THE ROAD FROM MOROCCO. She offers some of the finest explanations about the ways of life in countries where women have traditionally been viewed as second-class citizens, the property of men, denied basic human rights, and how a few women have had the courage to alter that perception. Hallam also relates in fine detail the political history of her native Morocco and in doing so gives powerful insights into the types of government and the rise and fall of leaders in that area of the world that is the source of oil at present and the source of a rich history of culture and wisdom. For the first third of the book the reader is glued to the pages, afraid that putting the book aside for more than an evening will dilute the power of the presentation and the innumerable terms and insights the author offers. After that brilliant introduction the book dilutes into the story of familial discord, abusive parents, drunken fathers, angry mothers, disenchanted young girls - all of which leads to what finishes the book as a series of scenes of sexual liaisons, attempted affairs, marriages, divorces, onset of mental illness, moves from Morocco to areas of Europe and finally to America, the struggle to assimilate in a new country, the successes and failures in both love, education, career, family fragility, motherhood, divorce, more affairs, etc. To read THE ROAD FROM MOROCCO is to fall in love with Wafa Faith Hallam: she earns our respect and affection easily. But to endure the constant barrage of falling victim to inherited and inbred traits that seem to disallow finding happiness for a young woman who overcomes much yet seems to undermine her own happiness with many wrong choices gradually becomes wearing - to the point of staying with the book. This reader would like to see Wafa Faith Hallam take on a fictional novel, one in which she does not find to insert her own victimhood as a plea for acceptance. With the graceful writing skills she possesses that book would seem bound for success. Perhaps this book was written to purge her past and now that it is public she will be able to move on. She has the talent. Grady Harp
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The Appeal of Stalking
by
Stan Talbott
Grady
, February 09, 2012
Stalking: unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person., February 9, 2012 Stan Talbott has polished the concept of writing terse suspense novels by abiding by the code that there are many sides to every situation. His subject matter in this immensely readable book is divorce and the spectrum of events that the termination of a marriage can present. He is careful not to make his characters black and white, he allows us to understand motivations and the by-products of deeds, and he remains cognizant of the importance to the reader of a propulsive storyline. In short, Stan Talbott writes well. Billy Freeman and Diane Downer were married at one time but when we meet them they have been divorced for some time: Diane had been a burden in her addiction to drugs and alcohol. We meet Billy returning to the US from a time in Australia and we are allowed some insights into his personality by a jovial cab ride with a Pakistani cabby as they witness a man on a bridge bearing a sign stating 'Please Help My Kids' and 'Kids First', a clever entry point for the information that follows that Billy is accused of 'stalking' his former wife after a misunderstanding o f sorts: Diane captures their grandson Trystan from the couple's alcoholic daughter Faith and her illegal alien husband and unilaterally decides to place the child in first grade as opposed to the intended kindergarten. This seemingly minor incident raises issues of the pattern of stalkers - an apparent recurring situation in the Freeman family that the author develops very well. How Billy copes and deals with the label of 'stalker' is at times comic, at other times tragic, and at all times carries a dollop of truth that makes us all more attuned to the implication of the meaning of stalking. Talbott is a fascinating man in addition to his new-found skills in writing. He is a triathlon competitor, has been a successful coach for basketball, even founding a 3-on-3 outdoor basketball tournament project throughout Oregon, he has taught Journalism and English and has been a sports reporter. All of these attributes provide Talbott with a palpable energy as a writer: his novels speed along like a long distance run with plenty of side excursions to capture the imagination of every reader. Talbott seems to have a solid career ahead of him as a writer of note. Grady Harp, February 12
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Mind Your Own Life: The Journey Back to Love
by
Aaron Anson
Grady
, May 16, 2011
‘Don’t debate who you are; be who you are’: The Right to Unconditional Love 'My objective in writing this book was to encourage us all, at a minimum, to realistically examine our beliefs - especially how and why those beliefs came about. It's fair to say that the choices we're never given are the choices most will never make. Government and religion are intent on laying the ground rules for us to live by, and our mob mentality to be like others creates a false sense of acceptance as if society's values are our own.' This quotation is not the opening of this extraordinarily sensitive book/memoir by Aaron Anson, MIND YOUR OWN LIFE: THE JOURNEY BACK TO LOVE, but after reading this book several times it seems to be the essential core form which the rest of the book was drawn. Aaron Anson bravely goes where few others will tread in public light, sharing his own journey in coming to grips with a world that seemed to reject him, and in doing so he provides a Gilead in a narrative of love, acceptance, freedom, and happiness. With the publication of this book he steps into the role of a significant contemporary philosopher redesigning our concept of socialization and even civilization. But who is this erudite writer, this man who courageously seeks to break down barriers of prejudice? Investigation into his background reveals the following: Aaron Anson is an inspirational writer and new thought coach who is married and lives in Washington, DC with his partner Oliver, where they operate a small computer technology firm. He is currently at work on another book and has appeared on several radio shows and spoken at a number of literary events around the country. MIND YOUR OWN LIFE, his first book, began as a journal of his life and eventually unfolded into a book. Before then he did not consider being a writer and accepted the creation that his writing instead chose him as a vessel for those with muted voices longing to be heard and those striving for an authentic affirmation of self-love. Raised a devout Christian in the South and endeavoring to uphold indoctrinated beliefs, he struggled to suppress his nascent sexual attraction hoping to escape the ambiguity of being gay with Christian beliefs. After a stint in the military he married and fathered two children before accepting that he was inherently a gay man. His fascination with the arts, world cultures, and all of humanity has led him to travel six continents. Anson is passionated about empowering teenagers gay and straight alike who struggle to find their place amidst the bombardment of excessive political and religious rhetoric. He has participated in relief efforts around the world and several missions that address homelessness.' What Anson brings to the reader's attention is a book well written and obviously experienced that has many topics to examine - prejudice, religious intolerance, government intolerance, hypocrisy - all made the more poignant because he relates these conundrums to his own sexuality. The struggles this man has suffered he refuses to quantify or maintain as smoldering embers of a past. Instead he has become a spokesman for human rights - be those rights race based, sexual identity based, or defining how God should be interpreted - the right to be ourselves. His message is one of 'minding our own lives', taking responsibility for being the person we were created to be instead of the droid society and religion and government has designed as the standard. In Anson's words: 'If we choose to take our minds and lives here on earth and turn them over to others for the handling, and disbursement of information, that to me is religious. If I seek my own awareness and explore my uniquely personal connection to the Universe, then that is spiritual, and this is where I choose to operate.' Aaron Anson has provided a handbook for young people who are confused and for adult who have lost direction in society's maze designed to define us. This is a smart, informing, and profoundly moving book. Grady Harp
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Products For A Happy Life
by
Jen Mcknight Trontz
Grady
, October 23, 2007
The Simple Things: Reminders That They Are Still Here As each of us daily boots up the computer to go shopping on the internet, intending to avoid leaving the house, or seeking the best bargain without having to drive to the stores, walk the aisles, chat with the clerks or perhaps the store owner - remember the socializing while shopping for things that begged to be picked up and thought about and discussed before taking out the wallet and paying? - or in other words, consuming as electronic parts replace the human interaction, there is that tiny twinge of memory of the 'old days' without the computer/cellphone/instant messaging with video depersonalization. That is what this little, beautifully crafted, tender and well-designed book is all about. Jennifer McKnight-Trontz has provided a pathway to a quieter time, that period when new objects were viewed in decorated store windows or in Montgomery Ward catalogs, and simply turning the pages of this treasure house gives a second look at the solid things, the memorabilia of a slower time: PRODUCTS FOR A HAPPY LIFE. In simple single color drawings on contrasting color pages are items that range from slip joint pliers, pocket knives, toasters, clothes pins and willow clothes baskets, tricycles, home floor fans, rolling pins, scooters, women's and men's underwear, hangers, hairpin/bobby pin/rollerpin, steel crib, steering sled, to the basic broom - among countless other items. The drawings are accompanied by succinct descriptions of the items without ballyhoo or noxious sales tactics. These are the items from our past and the author/designer simply places them before our eyes as gentle prods to reminisce about the products for a happy life, products that signify a time before our current chaotic computer driven existence. It is a pleasure to visit this little book: it is the perfect bread and butter gift to leave behind the next time to pay someone a visit (remember that?....) Grady Harp
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Borderline
by
Bonnie Rozanski
Grady
, September 26, 2007
A Very Important New Novel about the Eccentricities of our Society BORDERLINE is a book that works on so many levels that it is almost unclassifiable. It is a genuinely warm, tender, humorous coming of age story while at the same time being a novel that is smart, informative and illuminating in the fields of genetics, autism as an increasingly proliferating condition, fast food and obesity as national crises, and the overemphasis of pill-popping for invented childhood and adult disorders. Sounds like too much information to compress into one book? Not in the deft hands of author Bonnie Rozanski! For all of the intelligent and interesting information the book contains, the story itself is an amazingly fresh novel, written with great style and sensitivity, a novel than will appeal to just about everyone no matter the age group. Guy Ritter is a twelve-year-old son of a geneticist father, an activist mother, and Guy happens to have a five-year-old brother Austin who is an autistic child. Guy feels extraneous in this family whose focus is on controlling autistic Austin, he has little tolerance for school, and finds some consolation in his obese best friend Matt. Guy's father runs a lab of genetics research, the current project being how to breed wolves to become like docile dogs, and when Guy is finally invited into his father's work life, Guy falls in love with animal # JX104 whom he gradually wins over as a friend and changes his scientific name to 'Wolf' - his new best friend. Guy's life is complicated by his mother's blind devotion to autistic Austin (she is convinced the autism is due to a vaccination!), by Matt's broken home and Matt's grossly obese father who is addicted to junk food from Hamburger Haven (a habit that results in a crisis), and by a distant father whose concerns are dedicated to his scientific work which nearly excludes Guy from existence. The story builds very coherently with mounting tensions on multiple levels (each level a significantly important social malady) until Guy coerces Matt into freeing the soon to be exterminated Wolf from his father's lab of cages. Then with the unexpected help of Austin and the courage to do what is 'right', a completely new beginning to Guy's dissociative life comes into focus. It is the manner in which Rozanski relates her story - through the eyes and experiences and perceptions of a 12 to 13 year-old boy that makes this a novel of consuming interest. It is beautifully constructed, insightful, sensitive, and entertaining, all the while addressing many issues that are puzzling the public today. It has all the earmarks of a lasting and successful novel. Highly recommended. Grady Harp
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Merging with Monsters
by
Joseph Eugene Green
Grady
, May 03, 2007
Merging Talent and Style: Enter Joseph Eugene Green! With the patience and perseverance of a spider, Joseph Eugene Green spins a web of intrigue that serves to focus on the inner workings of major corporations (a very timely topic!), and writes with such centripetal force that the end of this very fine novel is an explosion at the core. Green, himself an integral part of the corporate world, has a rich vocabulary, a keen sense of characterization, and the ability to present the intimate aspects of the sex lives of straight people, gay people, and those on the down low - be they African American, Hispanic, white, or biracial - with more sensitivity to sensuality than most writers writing today. MERGING WITH MONSTERS is not only about corporate mergers, but also about sexual mergers, and even past-to-present mergers - and in each category the constituents are often monsters. Anita Powers is a beautiful black woman from humble beginnings who entered her adult life with a horrid physical assault, yet instead of submitting to that incident's scars, has climbed the ladder of success to become a top corporate executive. Likewise her close friend Phoebe, from similar background, sustained a gunshot wound as a result of being public with her girlfriend and is wheelchair bound, yet rises to high levels in corporate management as Anita's assistant. Grayson Malone also has a past of secrets, and as a handsome black man marries a white girl Sherry, coping with the familial prejudices as well as the corporate problems to rise in the ranks of the big companies. Julian Quintana comes from a humble, close-knit family and faces not only the corporate prejudices of being an Hispanic but also those of his being gay. And these are only a few of the myriad characters that Green catches in his web, interrelating them all in a manner that addresses so many social evils, so many personal triumphs won by sheer chutzpah, and so many private and public pains, that the reader is left nearly breathless as the novel speeds to a satisfactory end. Green is a very fine writer. There are some technical aspects of his style that can either be considered positive or negative, depending on the reader's mindset: he for some reason feels the need to call his black characters either Sistah or Brotha and italicizes these terms, pulling focus away from his narrative in a jarring way; he has a propensity to use repeated phrases in italics between paragraphs to apparently project a character's subconscious when the writing simply doesn't need the diversion/distraction. But these are small (and remedial) aspects of a mature writer's gifts, and since this novel establishes Joseph Eugene Green as a successful African American artist as well as simply a fine writer, he can now move forward and continue to create spellbinding plots and characters without the need for gimmicks. He definitely is a writer to watch - and this novel is fine piece of work! Grady Harp
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Journey To the End of the Night
by
Grady
, March 03, 2007
A Director Searching for his Signature For those of us who found much to admire and appreciate in Eric Eason's 2002 little powerhouse of a film MANITO that placed Franky G in the limelight as a sound actor inside that hunky exterior, the release of JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT held much promise. Unfortunately with moving into the arena of 'major features' with popular big actors in a script that is deeply in need of surgery proves a step too quickly taken. While it is easy to see Eason's intentions in this very dark (literally!) film, it is compulsively doctored with phony 'reality ideas' that misfire. The basic story is a family of Americans who are deeply involved in the crime scene (brothels) of São Paulo, Brazil, intricately bound in their crime acts but both planning to escape the quagmire of the dingy life of the city and return to America. The father Sinatra (Scott Glenn) is living with Angie (Catalina Sandino Moreno - the star of 'Maria Full of Grace') and they have a small child: Sinatra's son Paul (Brendan Fraser) is also in love with Angie and plans an escape from the dregs of Sao Paulo after he manages to work a drug pass engineered by his father. The sale is to Nigerians who speak Yoruba and when the 'messenger' meant to pass the drugs for the money abruptly dies in a brothel with a transgender prostitute, the panic begins: who can make the pass that night? Sinatra hires a Nigerian, Yoruba speaking dishwasher Wemba (Mos Def) who agrees to take the drugs to the drop site and it seems Wemba is the only decent character to keep his bargain and his word. Paul is enraged with the death of the original middleman and ends up disfiguring the prostitute present at his death. The drug deal falls into problems, Paul is unable to convince Angie to stand by him (which mean leaving Paul's father and the possible endangerment of her son), and things bog down plot-wise so that story ultimately ends with the only persons to care about are Angie and Wemba. Eason makes his story all happen in one night and the constant factor is a greenish darkness that hides almost everything - and that may be a good thing! The script is Swiss cheese, the acting is for the most part sadly directed, the cast is poorly chosen, and the only real redeeming factor is the chance to watch Mos Def continue to flesh out his career with well executed character roles. Eric Eason holds much promise as a director (he was the awarded best emerging filmmaker by first annual Tribeca Film Festival in New York City in 2002), so perhaps this excursion into the 'big screen realm' can be forgiven as overstepping his material. In the end JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT is hopefully just a sidestep for a director who obviously has considerable talent. Grady Harp
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Paris Underground
by
Caroline Archer
Grady
, February 10, 2007
Subterranean Graffiti: From Lurid to Languorous to Spiritual Caves as a source of civilization sources have long been a part of cultural studies: what men and women do in the dark underground spaces to communicate their feelings, responses, fears, sensual pleasures. political reasons for escaping the world above at times tell us more than the formal written word. Such may just be the case of this excellent monograph on the tunnels and quarries that weave below the cit of Paris (the City of Light!) by journalist, writer, graphic artist Caroline Archer and architect, photographer Alexandre Parre. While novels and films (such as Les Miserables) have informed us about part of the underground webs beneath Paris, the more than 177 miles of tunnels that have provided sanctuary for anonymous and illicit visitors for some 300 years. Whether the 'artists' of creation were in hiding from danger or political fears or merely graffiti creators on the rampage since the 1970s when the tunnels were 'discovered' more widely, the status of this underground gallery of art and history is a fascinating source of investigation into urban culture and outsider art. The book is well designed with copious photographs of the many 'treasures' found and described by the authors. The art ranges form sculpture, to human remnants, to written word, stolen signs and tracts imbedded in the walls, to repeated images of 'Corps Blanc' (White Corpse) that appears to be some sort of mask-like signal to distract visitors' attention or summon fear to exit. Here are recreations of famous art done in incredibly expert fashion as well as some very strange gargoyle like carvings, three dimensional human forms emerging from the walls, clips of historical numbers and data, and both fine original art as well as lurid graffiti. It is an endlessly interesting and puzzling trek to follow Archer and Parre through these spaces. Not only is the design of the book of the highest quality, the photographs and the writing are first rate - intelligent, informed, and entertaining. This is a book to return to whenever the urge for discovery of the hidden treasures of civilization arises. Highly recommended. Grady Harp
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Faces of the Living Dead The Belief in Spirit Photography
by
Martyn Jolly
Grady
, February 08, 2007
An Erudite and Fascinating Examination of Spiritualism and Photography Though the subject of spirit photography is not a novel one, few writers have offer the degree of academic investigation, research, and fascinating illustrated documentation of the subject as has Martyn Jolly in FACES OF THE LIVING DEAD: THE BELIEF IN SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY. This beautifully produced book, published on fine paper and designed with the topic in mind, surveys the advent of Spiritualism in the mid-nineteenth century to its gradual dissolution into the New Age Realm in the twentieth century. Jolly writes with infectious enthusiasm for his subject, never stooping to denigrate his topic but rather electing to explain the times and incidents which contributed to the need for Spiritualism and the accompanying wide use of the camera to provide desperately needed evidence that the departed can communicate with us. The book is rich in examples of some very startling photographs that mark the appearance of faces, bodies, and gauzy hoverings in the old photographic portraits that became so popular as the camera gained a foothold in artistic and documentary use. Even if this well-designed book were only of images, the volume would be a fascinating collection of otherworldly strangeness. But it is to Jolly's credit that the reverse is true: his writing is so excellent that the accompanying photographs are almost superfluous, so meticulous is his descriptive commentary. Yet marry the two - the visual and the written - and the result is a book of endless fascination. This book is a fine addition to the libraries focusing on photography, on the history of Spiritualism, and on the needy imaginations of those who shared these treasures with the world. Highly recommended. Grady Harp
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Hollywoodland (Full Screen)
by
Ben Affleck
Grady
, February 07, 2007
'Nobody ever asks to be happy later.' HOLLYWOODLAND is a very long (two hours plus) film noir that is actually a film khaki: the droning muted brown to ochre tones of the film itself match the story well - and that is not necessarily a compliment. The 'unresolved' death of B-grade actor George Reeves who was disconsolate at having his crowning achievement be the Superman role (my, how times have changed!) is the subject of this story as written by Paul Bernbaum (best known for his ongoing 'Halloweentown' series) and directed by Allen Coulter whose credentials as a TV director are impressive. With a cast of top-notch actors this should have been a surefire hit, but somehow being unable to care about any of the characters in the film makes it leaden. Though the film takes place in 1959 (the death by suicide vs possible homicide) the action spreads into the early 50s as Reeves (Ben Affleck) stumbles up the rickety Hollywood ladder of minor roles, alcohol and carousing until he meets aging Toni Mannix (Diane Lane) whose marriage of convenience to super producer Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins) leads to his attaining the role of Superman and the accompanying position of being Toni's lover. The story weaves rather aimlessly through Reeves' checkered life with paramour Leonore Lemmon (Robin Tunney) and influences from well-meaning supporters. But while we watch this rather tepid Hollywood wannabe climb we are escorted by the investigation of his death by one Louis Simo (Adrien Brody) who has been hired by Reeves' mother Helen Bessolo (the always fine Lois Smith) to prove that her 'brilliant actor' son was murdered. The suicide death of Reeves is an open and shut case with the LAPD until Simo tinkers with the evidence, all the while ignoring his rather smarmy career as a private investigation, a distraction which leads to its own dire consequences. Simo also encounters problems with his ex-wife Laurie (Molly Parker) and his young son disillusioned that Superman would kill himself. The facts of Reeves' life parallel with the facts of Simo's life and the manner in which Coulter works with this data places past with present, Reeves with Simo in tightly connected frames so that we never know whose is coming into the next dark space: it becomes a bit tedious and confusing, but in the end it is all bleak and disjointed. The actors try hard to salvage this film and there are some good performances here. But for this viewer it is just a long khaki song that never reaches the chorus. Grady Harp
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Madonna Of The Toast
by
Buzz Poole
Grady
, February 06, 2007
'We see what we want to see' Buzz Poole (author of the brilliant GREEN DESIGN) brings his rather daunting gifts of communication both visual and verbal to yet another interesting release from the consistently creative Mark Batty Publisher in New York. This time Poole turns from ecological investigation to quasi-spiritual investigation and the results are pages of images that push the imagination and sense of humor cum fascination to new limits. Poole opens his pictorial series of essays with a definition of the term 'Pereidolia' - 'a psychological phenomenon elicited by random visual stimuli being mistakenly perceived as recognizable'. He then personalizes this universal phenomenon by entering the world of daydreaming, a space and arrested time when we stare at clouds or bits and pieces of detritus and find faces staring back at us. Some would call them miracles, some signs from on high (or down below!), and some as mechandisable fragments for financial gain. Poole doesn't just create his own experiences: Poole travels to meet people and places where images (not unlike the shroud of Turin) have been celebrated. We meet Myrtle and her potato chips, many of which hold images of the likes of Bob Hope's profile; shower curtains with Lenin's image as clear as a ghost; a Michelin-mimicking carrot; a Holstein cow whose black spots coalesce into the image of Mickey Mouse; endless images of Christ on mandolins, frying pans, pierogi; a pancake with the incidental likeness of Pope John Paul II; fish with Arabic signs from Allah; a melted chocolate mound resembling the Virgin Mary - the list goes on. The pleasure in reading this book is a mixture of chuckling about what others have convinced the public is 'real' and the very tender way in which Poole captures the images and respectfully explains their derivation. This is not a book that denigrates anyone's belief: this is a book that merely shares them with a wider audience. As we are coming to expect from Poole, here is a writer designer who has a keen eye for the little bit of paraphernalia that make our world tick! Grady Harp
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Unhitched
by
Grady
, February 05, 2007
'And may the best man win...' UNHITCHED is a fairly well made, generic Hollywood love story that provides a reasonably entertaining evening because of the actors cast in the roles. The story by director Stefan Schwartz and Ed Roe is recycled fluff with nothing new added, yet despite that fact the pacing and acting bring off a fun little film. As marriage enters the agenda of old friends, promiscuous James (Steve John Shepherd) is scheduled to marry Sarah (Amy Smart, always a pleasure to watch) and asks his best friend Olly (the talented and hunky Irishman Stuart Townsend in a very nice comedic turn) to be his Best Man. Olly, a writer whose first chapters have been lauded by his publisher (Simon Callow) and that early praise has thrown him into writer's block forcing him to take a menial job as a PA under grumpy feminist Tania (Johdi May), fears accepting the role of Best Man out of the challenge tied to writing the wedding reception speech. He is encouraged not to accept the role by his roommate friend Murray (5'4" Seth Green, who has many comedy roles to his credit - this one being the first with a fine British accent). Murray knows of James' peppered past and sets out to stop the wedding - especially when he discovers that Olly has fallen for Sarah, mistaking her for Sarah's Maid of Honor Becka (Kate Ashfield). Olly is a true friend and will sacrifice his longing for Sarah out of his loyalty to James - until Murray proves that James indeed is a promiscuous lothario. And the chase, with many a pratfall, begins as Olly ultimately sides with Murray to prevent his losing Sarah. Townsend makes a fine turn out of his obvious role, proving that he not only can master dramatic and intrigue roles, but light comedy ones as well. Seth Green may be small but he is a powerhouse of physical comedic talent. Amy Smart doesn't have much to do, but when she is on screen she glows with intelligence as well as beauty. It is the cast that makes this film work and they are enough of a pleasure to watch to merit sitting through another re-telling of a tired story. Grady Harp
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Forbidden Love with a Married Man: E-mail Diaries
by
Dennis J. Schleicher
Grady
, February 01, 2007
A Different Kind and Style of Memoir Reviewing a book such as Dennis J. Schleicher's 'Forbidden Love With a Married Man: E-mail Diaries' is a difficult task. There are two ways to approach this first book by a courageous writer: first, with applause for a writer willing to take on a controversial subject and create a book that will doubtless be of consolation and guidance to people on both sides of the quandary discussed; and two, as a helpful review of a book as a book - the kind of honest analysis of a work whose content and style can benefit from serious critique. Dennis J. Schleicher's purpose in writing this book is to give some balance to the problem of married couples, one of whom is either gay, lesbian or bisexual, and how honesty in those marriages can lead to happier lives for both parties - even if that means divorce and reconstruction of life patterns. He achieves this goal by presenting his own life as a high school lad beaten severely by gay bashers before he was even aware of his sexuality, his subsequent trials and fame as guest on famous talk shows, and his eventual finding the perfect mate on an internet ad and subsequent email courtship - his only problem being that the perfect soul mate was a married man. In the development of his book Schleicher begins with a little autobiography and then the bulk of the book is a transcription of all of his emails with his new soul mate, emails that outline the cautious development of their relationship and finally result in documentation of a successful pairing. Interjected among the emails are brief quips of telephone conversations and descriptions of mating rituals and email advice from Schleicher's previous relationships. In the end there is a closing page that gives support to all married couples who may be facing the same problem of forbidden love, followed by a bibliography of helpful related books and articles. All of that works well. The problem with the writing is that too often Schleicher relies on repeated phrases ('a tear rolled down my cheek' for instance) and that may be meant to mirror the repetition so often found in email correspondence. It feels as though there is a good writer inside Schleicher and hopefully the technical aspects of writing will surface in the books he doubtless will publish after this first venture. At this point his first book is very readable and something needed (not unlike the multiple books about being 'on the Down Low'), but it feels as though in a less rush to print mode Schleicher may be on the verge of writing some fine fiction. Grady Harp
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Marine
by
Rudy Josephs
Grady
, February 01, 2007
If meant to be a spoof, it is passable: "Come on baby light my fire" For the first half hour of this movie the viewer may get the idea that the script Michelle Gallagher and Alan B. McElroy is just awful (with good perception!), but as the film's story evolves the idea that this may just be a National Lampoon parody of action flicks - and if that is the case, it is truly a funny bit of entertainment - for a while. Then it becomes obvious that the minimal storyline (ex-Marine's wife is abducted by diamond thieves and Marine elects to leave his one day 'security job' and take the initiative to capture his wife and strike down the bad guys in the swamps of North Carolina) is really just a matrix for staging as many pyrotechniques explosions as possible. It does get tedious. The 'star' of this noisy, 'Unrated for destructive violence' film is one John Cena, another wrestler from WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) being promoted by the director John Bonito to follow the path of The Rock: the difference is The Rock has done some classy acting and a range of roles that call for much more than flexing whereas Cena seems completely like a fish out of water who has yet to take a class in acting basics. John Cena does have a splendid physique and perhaps that should have been more on camera. Instead his 'John Triton' character, despite his tremendous physical advantages, gets beaten up by some pretty small and older guys, making us wonder why he has all that bulk and no fighting ability. The cast is good to adequate and once you realize this film is a parody, they seem even better delivering the corny lines they are given. Among the crew are Robert Patrick as Rome (the chief bad guy), Kelly Carlson as John's wife, Anthony Ray Parker as the hilarious 'token black' bad guy (he truly has comedic talent), hunkies Manu Bennett and Frank Carlopio for eye candy, Abigail Bianca, Jerome Ehlers, Damon Gibson, and Drew Powell as the crew in flight. They are a likeable bunch of criminals but oh can they blow things up! For the action film addicts only. Grady Harp
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Half Light
by
Grady
, January 31, 2007
A Suspenseful Thriller/Mystery in Story and Setting HALF LIGHT (a title with a lot of meaning revealed only at the conclusion of the film!) is a fine, atmospheric, well-acted little drama that explores belief in the beyond and its impact of post-traumatic responses to death. Written and directed by Craig Rosenberg (Hotel de Love) the story challenges the viewer to enter the strange world of afterlife and consider the fine differences between illusion and credibility. Rachel Carson (Demi Moore in a fine performance) is a successful writer living in London with her disillusioned editor husband Brian (Henry Ian Cusick) and her young son Thomas (Beans El-Balawi). In a freak accident Thomas drowns and Rachel is devastated, and deciding that her marriage is indeed over she moves to a little quaint Scottish island cottage where she can devote her mind to her writing. She is a loner, talking only on cell phone to her best friend Sharon (Kate Isitt) in London, until she meets her neighbors the Murrays (James Cosmo and Joanna Hole) who befriend her. She begins to see visions of Thomas, talks to him knowing that he is just in her imagination, until she meets some townspeople who undermine her belief in departed spirits. There is a lighthouse off the coast and Rachel boats out, meets the lighthouse keeper Angus (Hans Matheson who is remembered for his Marius in 'Les Mis?rables', as Nero in 'Imperium: Nero', and Yuri in 'Dr. Zhivago' and Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex in 'The Virgin Queen' - the latter two being TV miniseries). Slowly the two develop an attraction and affair, only for Rachel to find out from the townsfolk that Angus has been dead for seven years! At this point the mystery takes precedence and the intricate truths of a terrifying plot unfold: the race to the ending is filled with surprises and unexpected events. The cinematography by Ashley Rowe and the musical score by Brett Rosenberg add enormously to the mood of this piece. HALF LIGHT is a solid movie, filled with suspense and well-written story and character development and deserves far more attention than it received in the theaters. Demi Moore proves again that she can handle dramatic roles well and Hans Matheson is most assuredly a young actor to watch! Grady Harp
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Echoes From The Infantry
by
Frank Nappi
Grady
, January 30, 2007
'I am the enemy you killed, my friend...let us sleep now' These words by poet Wilfred Owen from his body of work concerning World War I are an appropriate summation of the depth of feeling contained in pages of this most impressive 'first novel' by Frank Nappi. It is not often that first novels are rated with five stars: the higher ratings are usually reserved for the great works of literature by solid practitioners of the art of writing. But Nappi has created a finely wrought study/story of the effects of war not only on those who survive their time on the battlefields, but also on the families to whom they return. This is a simply told, wisely crafted, eloquently written novel that gives notice that there is a major new talent rising in the ranks of notable artists. World War II. James McCleary departs Rockaway Beach, NY, as the eldest sons of innumerable families did, to fight in the European Theater of France and Germany. Beginning as a robust fellow he bonds with fellow soldiers, survives treacherous battles and encounters with the enemy, witnesses all the horrors of war's filthy greed, and ends up in a German POW camp, ultimately returning home with the liberation of the camps by the defeat of Hitler and with the end of the war. James returns to marry Madeline the sweetheart of his pre-war days and sires three sons. But James is a changed, distant man from the lad Madeline first met. He is unable to retain jobs, is emotionally abusive to both his wife and sons, and lives in a silent world of a mind critically damaged by war. There is one particular secret that serves as a festering wound, preventing him from returning to normalcy after the war's end and it is that secret ultimately revealed that helps alter his approach to the future. Nappi very wisely weaves the present with the past in his manner of relating James' trauma: chapters alternate from the present to the past and back. The novel opens with his three adult sons returning home for the funeral of their mother and it is this time of vulnerability that acts as the stage for the confrontation of James' most damaged son John to finally uncover the mysteries of why his father gave him so little during youth. Cleaning the attic to sell the now defunct family home results in John's uncovering letters and messages long hidden that allow him to understand the irreversible emotional damage his father suffered: these letters reveal a tender John writing romantic missives to his beloved Madeline as well as a note from a German soldier that offers John forgiveness for the deadly burden that has encased John's life since the war. It is a time of reconciliation between father and son but more importantly it is a moment of revelation about how devastating war continues to be long after the truce is waved. Nappi recreates both the WW II atmosphere and the hometown angst as well as many of our finest writers. He writes descriptions of the cruelest acts of war in such a straightforward manner that he avoids the grotesque and the maudlin that have marred 'war stories' in literature. Not that Nappi shies away from facts or from acute observation: quite the opposite. He writes with economy that makes the events of war and of post traumatic stress syndrome far more pungent than had he elected to indulge in excess. He has created characters fully three-dimensional, people who become indelible on our minds. It is difficult, but rewarding, to believe that this is a first novel. We can obviously expect more meaningful and powerful books from Frank Nappi. Highly recommended. Grady Harp
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Reading Like a Writer A Guide for People Who Love Books & for Those Who Want to Write Them
by
Francine Prose
Grady
, January 30, 2007
Sharing and Reciprocating Francine Prose is fine craftsman and an inspiriting writer of fiction as well as book on history and art. In this current excellent book she shares her vast experience in teaching and in communicating with students, friends, critics, writers both alive and dead, and now with us, the fortunate audience. Prose is really talking about how both she and other writers practive their craft and in doing so she shares motivational information on how to better enjoy reading: her premise is that if we understand how great works are created we will better appreciated the art of reading. Beginning with a very informative essay on the concept of reading slowly, for the words and word structures, not unlike the old pastime of reading aloud to a group, Prose seduces us into her world of complete pleasure with the written word. She early on advises us as to the writers she most cherishes - and they are legion - and then develops a manner of looking at the page over several categories of thinking. Her chapters (after 'Close Reading') are as follows: Words, Sentences, Paragraphs, Narration, Character, Dialogue, Details, and Gestures. In each fascinating chapter she shows us how different authors have successfully addressed each issue of storytelling - and the examples are fascinatingly learned. Prose ends her book with words to encourage us to go back to the classics to better serve our reading of current literature. It all works well - we leave her book hungry to read more! Grady Harp
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Sherrybaby
by
Grady
, January 28, 2007
The Plight of the Addict Laurie Collyer both wrote and directed this very fine little film that examines the world in which addicted people live, even after they have 'paid their debt to society' by being imprisoned. She does not play to the sympathy of the audience: she rather empathizes with one woman's plight in her struggle to gain control of a life she has never been able to successfully assemble. Sherry Swanson (a brilliant tour de force by Maggie Gyllenhaal) has been in prison for robbery, drug possession and heroin addiction for several years and as the film opens she is released to her hometown in New Jersey where she is assigned a parole officer (Giancarlo Esposito) and a 'safe haven' home. She longs to see her five-year-old daughter Alexis (Ryan Simpkins) whom she barely knows and who has been living with her brother Bobby (the excellent Brad William Henke) and his wife Lynette (Bridget Barkan). After encountering much prejudice and abuse heaped on ex-cons looking for work, Sherry manages to find a job working with kids and tries desperately to re-connect with Alexis but is rebuffed by Lynette and warned by Bobby that should she bring drugs in the house he will send her back to prison. Sherry stumbles through her out-of-prison existence, connecting with old friends at an AA meeting, having a fling with her old flame Dean (Danny Trejo), attending a birthday party for Alexis given at her parents home where her father (Sam Bottoms) comforts her in a sexually intrusive way, and struggling with her roommates until she moves out on her own. She aches from not belonging, from the fact that her life on the 'outside' is as much a prison as on the 'inside', and she returns to drugs. Given an ultimatum by her parole officer she finally thinks she can put her life back together, but a planned outing with daughter Alexis forces Sherry to face the fact that she is not capable of the skills of mothering and she is able finally to ask for help from her caring brother. Maggie Gyllenhaal is Sherry with every fiber of her being. It is a performance worthy of top honors. The beauty of the film is the fact that it does not opt for Hollywood happy endings: it merely stops with many questions unanswered - as is the case in life with people who suffer the agonies of addiction. It is beautifully acted and filmed and it deserves the attention of not only lovers of fine film, but also people who want to try to understand the horrors of drug addiction in a society unprepared to cope with it. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp
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Bathroom Graffiti
by
Mark Ferem
Grady
, January 26, 2007
Latrinalia: Learning More About Our Private Selves Mark Ferem is onto a strong concept. For several years he has been photographing and writing about the graffiti found in restrooms across America, Mexico, and Canada, finding that these tiny repositories of space isolate potential writers, giving them momentary privacy to pen their thoughts and perceptions and flailings and political strider and sexual leanings. The result of this preoccupation is a book that is not only a well designed photography survey of latrines ('latrinalia') but it is also a sensitive study of the needs of those who elect to decorate the walls during those private moments of waiting for nature to take its course. Amir H. Fallah introduces the book with an essay in which lines such as these arise: 'Usually the scrawls and doodles in the bathrooms don't reveal anything profound or life altering. They are simply messages and images written and drawn anonymously in the safety of the bathroom stall'...'They capture moments in time where individuals left their marks for the rest of us to see, binding us all together by the simple fact that we all have to go to the bathroom.' Ferem then introduces his project with some personal wisdom as to why people write what they write and then proceeds to divide his book into sections: Introduction (The Wall) 'Latrinalists believe that there is no ascension without dissension'; Men's Room 'If Pro is Progress, what is Con?'; Women's Room; Uni-Sex; Politikal Asylum (sic); Apokalupsis Now (sic); and Random Firing Neurons. Of course each of these chapters are groundings for some superb photographs, taken in all manner of light and from angles that would challenge the finest fine art photographer. Close-ups of lines of wisdom or folly, images of very well drawn graffiti, and color-smeared filthy walls that bespeak of layer upon layer of thoughts and emotional outlets - all provide laughs and thoughts and serve as a nidus for philosophizing. In the end Mark Ferem invites us all to add to his ongoing project of latrinalia. 'Bathroom graffiti elevates the common moment and its intention...The spirit of latrinalia may not be in the words and images but in the consciousness in which it is written.' It makes for an intriguing book, a photographic odyssey that is produced and designed in the highest quality as an art book. And it makes us curious...Grady Harp
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New Orleans Bicycles
by
Nicholas Costarides
Grady
, January 26, 2007
A Remarkable Insight into the Unique Character of New Orleans This small scale but very heady book published by the always excellent firm of Mark Batty Publisher is not only an entertaining, beautifully designed and produced series of images of bicycles, but it is also a cultural study of a city antiquarian in nature and hanging on to a rich past by its fingertips. Photographers and writers Nicholas Costarides and Mary Richardson wandered this great mecca for bohemians for a year and a half - before Katrina's heinous visitation - falling in love with the city's preoccupation with the bicycle, the primary mode of transportation in this flat and poverty stricken lady of a city. They discovered that not only were bicycles a proven means of peripatetic survival but that they also became symbols for the people who owned them, people whose pride and idiosyncrasies flavor the appearance of these timeworn bi-pedals, releasing torrents of information and fantasy to the searching eye and mind. Mary Richardson opens the book with a comment 'On Spinning Wheels' which reads like an extended poem. 'These are not just bicycles, they are extensions of personalities, tainted with the grime of the city. And they are individuals in the rawest sense'...'It's a life that can't exist outside the schizophrenia of unlimited limitations. New Orleans bicycles: the crippled potential, the lust to keep pushing down the same old streets, the looks of peace as they're chained and bound to their city, and the knowledge that it's just a short distance to their destination, but lack of motion can be paralyzing.' The book is then graced with the formal foreword by Andrei Codrescu, the author 'New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty years of Writing from the City' which segues into countless photographs of some of the strangest, most humorous, sentimentally stained bicycles imaginable. Costarides and Richardson have photographed panoramas of sidestreets, bicycles chained to posts, intimate details of the decor and personality imposed on these time honored modes of transportation, and the peculiar accoutrements that offer such strong personalities to the bikes and their owners. The photographs are richly colorful and immaculately reproduced on quality paper. The design of the book is by Costarides and is not only of the highest quality of concept and execution, but it also uses some fascinating imprints on the pages of writing that subtly introduces the grime of the city we are about to visit. The book ends with an Epilogue entitled 'On Katrina' and leaves the reader with the sense of resilience that New Orleans will never die but will prosper BECAUSE of the tragedy. It is as moving as the book is entertaining. This is a superb character study presented in the top of the class manner. Bravo! Grady Harp
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Fish A Memoir Of A Boy In A Mans Prison
by
T J Parsell
Grady
, January 25, 2007
Far Finer A Book Than The Title Suggests! T.J. Parsell had many things going against him - after a life that would have been the destruction of most other youths suffering an abusive home life and going to prison for 'armed robbery' which in fact was a Photo Mat trick holdup with a toy gun - and he ends up a winner. This book, his first outing as a professional writer, is a tightly woven tale in the manner of a 'rake's progress' of what life inside our penal system is truly like. Fortunately for us, as readers, Parsell was able to successfully turn his life around after his incarceration and become an advocate for human rights, while concurrently presenting to the public the evidence that he has a natural gift for storytelling. This is not the typical 'confessions of a bad boy who survived': this is a finely written novel that explores characterization, atmosphere, and the trials of existing in the 'other world' inside prison bars. Parsell tells of his abuse and gang rape upon entry into prison, how he survived due to the kindness of 'his man' and finally came to accept his sexuality, finding friends and comrades along the way that served to redeem his rather bleak outlook on life by giving him the needed affection missing from birth. Nothing is 'prettified' nor is anything painted in a wholly negative fashion: life inside prison is different than it is on the outside - or is it? Is prison just a microcosm of why we as members of society cling to prejudices and have such a dearth of self esteem that we cannot see the larger global picture? Parsell presents his personal history in a manner that allows the reader to empathize, maintain critical distance, and still cheer for the underdog. He also writes a very beautiful love story and offers supportive evidence that personal sexual proclivity is a valid part of every individual's being. FISH is a fascinating, page-turning read, and despite some editorial flaws such as typos and grammar corrections, this is a very fine book - far better than anyone would expect. Recommended Reading. Grady Harp
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Who Lives?
by
Christopher Meeks
Grady
, January 25, 2007
At Rise: The Play as a Novel Christopher Meeks made a stunning impression as a writer of short stories in his collection THE MIDDLE-AGED MAN AND THE SEA published in 2005, an author who is not only observant of the little things that propel us through living but also as a man closely in touch with all the senses. Now he has published in book form his 1997 play WHO LIVES? and once again he ranks as a talent to watch. Note: the term 'At Rise' in a manuscript for a play indicates the curtain or the lights going up to open the experience of a story, yet here it can also be used to indicate the intensity of Meeks' substantial gifts as a writer, a playwright, and a craftsman. The story of the play, presented here in script form yet happily free of the many action indications usually found in scripts as asides that paralyze the movement of the eye through the meat of the story, is terse, tight, economical, and packs a wallop - even as a reader. No stumbling blocks, here, just propulsive story telling (think Tennessee Williams, William Inge, or even Shakespeare). Yes, the mellow secrets of the visual representation of the play's mechanics are present - double stage settings for the immediate story and for the committee input with accompanying lighting cues that allow us to understand how the characters interact between the personal and the group. 1963 is the year. Kidney Dialysis is a new machine that can prolong the lives of patients with renal failure, the beginnings of the entire field of kidney transplantation. Seattle is the place where a hospital is beginning to offer dialysis to candidates, and because of the plethora of potential candidates, a committee has been chosen to review all possible recipients - a thumbs up or thumbs down as to whether applicants live or die. Not a committee on which many would like to serve. But the main character of the story is one Gabriel Hornstein, a Jewish lawyer married to a Christian wife Margaret, whose marriage is rocky at best given the demanding personality of Gabriel. When out of the blue Gabriel is diagnosed with kidney failure he is outraged, pounding his fists at the heavens, until he hears of the Dialysis machine: he of course immediately demands he be placed on the life preserving apparatus despite the fact that his physician tells him there is a waiting list. Gabriel coerces his physician to be placed on the machine, and because of the inherent life/death decisions made by the 'committee' (a priest, a union labor leader, a college student, a businessman, and a housewife) Gabriel demands there be a broader range of opinions on this decision body. Gabriel is placed on the committee as 'patient responder' and his physician is placed on the committee as 'care giver'. The committee reviews candidates requesting dialysis: a black violinist for the Seattle Symphony, and accountant, etc. The thunder of Meeks' drama is the dialogue that occurs in the ethical, racial, religious, arts value to society, political, the right to die and eventually in the transformation of the members of the committee as they each grow from the heinous task of deciding 'acceptable patients'. And in the end it is the acerbic Gabriel who climaxes the play with a surprising decision. Christopher Meeks continues to impress (he has other plays under his belt), but this reader is hungry for the next novel (or even another collection of short stories) which really seems to be his premiere m?tier. Highly recommended for reading: highly recommended for performances in schools, community theaters - and there is even a screenplay obviously present in this book format...Grady Harp
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Wicked Dreams Kingdome 19
by
Claus Kiessling
Grady
, January 22, 2007
A Provocative Photographer's Eloquent Collection: Opus 2 WICKED DREAMS is a beautifully produced book of the further work of a German photographer who uses the moniker 'Kingdome 19'. For the past ten years he has stepped up from his training as a carpenter and graphic designer to focus on his true verve - representing 'emancipated gay identity'. His models are straight men, body builders, martial artists, prisoners and skinheads: his settings are derelict buildings and forgotten spaces. His subject matter is the nature of dreams, erotic photographs of his highly selected groups of men in full tumescence, and are a fine follow-up to his first highly successful book UNIVERSAL. His technique is hand wrought photographs worked from initial developing through the manipulation phase in his own darkroom. Not only are the men of this series magnificent specimens of unfettered masculinity, they are obviously very much at ease with Kingdome 19's vision. Using the texts of Elton John songs as themes these black and white and sepia toned images incorporate words and phrases, design elements and are molded with the artist's gift for using natural light in the most dramatic of ways. Clearly the book is aimed at a particular audience who are bound to be wholly satisfied with the product. But for lovers of fine photography, no matter the subject matter, WICKED DREAMS is an elegant, brave, seductive book and deserves an even broader audience - and may just be the beginning of more artistic gender equality for viewers! This is a very handsome, artistic, fine creative work. Grady Harp
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Exhibition Design
by
David Dernie
Grady
, January 22, 2007
Setting the Stage for Viewing Art There are few sources such as this one - EXHIBITION DESIGN - that share insider thoughts and plans and results of the process of presenting exhibitions in museums. As such it is a welcome addition to the art lover's library, something to ponder when trying to discover why some exhibitions (despite the subject of the curated objects) make and impact while others feel cold and distant to all but the addicted lover of that particular subject. Architect and exhibition designer David Dernie shares the mechanics and philosophies of current museums, pointing out the current concepts of 'immersion, interaction, and multisensory experiential approach' have moved from the purely entertainment field into the realm of the once rather sterile filed of exhibition design. His thoughts are amply illustrated by architectural renderings and photographs that, while informative, are not of the quality one would expect from a book on museum wisdom! But the elements of psychological significance on how to present art to the public eye to enhance the experience of viewing are sound ones, and in his words 'how objects are arranged will determine the nature of the message they communicate.' Grady Harp
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Santa Monica Mountains: Range of Majesty from the Sea to the City
by
Tom Gamache and Matthew Jaffe
Grady
, January 22, 2007
Three Journeys of One Mountain Range Bisecting the Noise of Los Angeles Author Matthew Jaffe and Photographer Tom Gamache have created a Valentine for Angelenos in this beautifully created and produced homage to the Santa Monica mountain range. And while the audience for this book is obviously for those who live in and around the title range in the basin of Los Angeles, the book is so well written and presented that it deserves wide circulation. Jaffe and Gamache approach the Santa Monica Mountains from three vantages: Mulholland Drive where perilous houses and more than a few mysteries cling to the canyons created by the mountains; Backbone Trail uncovers the natural flow of nature as it is graced by waterfalls and wildlife; and Pacific Coast Highway where the mountains kiss the Pacific Ocean in a love affair that is dotted with mansions and clashes with nature's raw arguments of storms. Throughout the book Jaffe's dialogue is informative and full of history as well as nearing poetry in his descriptions so well illustrated by the abundant fine photographs by Gamache. The range is captured is every form of foliage and light and some of the images here will remain embedded in the brain as rare glimpses of natural beauty that are too often overlooked by both Los Angeles outsiders and insiders. THE SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS: RANGE Of MAJESTY FROM THE SEA TO THE CITY is a romantic delight - an aspect of Los Angeles too seldom applauded. Grady Harp
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Universal
by
Kingdome 19
Grady
, January 22, 2007
A Photographic Collaboration: Kingdome 19 Embellishes Von Berg UNIVERSAL is a successful collaborative effort between Kingdome 19 (the well known carpenter/graphic artist turned photographer) and Henning von Berg (an equally well known architectural engineer turned photographer), both artists from Germany and both highly respected in Europe and now the USA. Their subject matter is the male nude and their similarities are their focus on non-studio settings and on their brave depiction of the aroused male. From von Berg's vast collection of photographs, Kingdome 19 re-worked many in his developing room, adding graphic details, works, markings, and other artistic elements, enhancing von Berg's sometimes static works immensely. But the book also shares many of Kingdome 19's own photographs, all presented in sepia toning, all with some degree of handcrafted manipulation to enhance the artistic aspect of the finished product, and all sensually beautiful in the casual manner in which he shares his models' willingness to be totally free with their posing. As the art world (since Mapplethorpe) has matured more and more to the point that male nudity, and even aroused male images, is becoming more accepted. Certainly at the top of the list of brave photographers is the always exciting work of Kingdome 19. This book contains nearly 150 images that are strong and challenging. Another fine book from Bruno Gmunder Verlag GmbH. Grady Harp
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Mothers & Sons
by
Colm Toibin
Grady
, January 22, 2007
Colm T?ib?n: Master Storyteller One of our most intensely refined and challenging writers of the day, Colm T?ib?n presents a new set of nine short stories correlated by the theme and title of mothers and sons, stories that mine the always fascinating relationship between mothers and sons, both positive and negative sides. This is writing of such apparent simplicity that the craftsmanship of his work is taken for granted - the mark of a truly fine writer. Here is a collection of stories to be read slowly, allowing time to digest each experience fully before moving on to the next. 'The Use of Reason' explores a son's theft of valuable art and the consequences of his actions result in a confrontation with his alcoholic mother that supercedes the criminal act. In the brief 'The Song' a young musician almost mistakenly hears his miscreant mother singing a ballad that should erase years of desertion just as in 'Famous Blue Raincoat' the son discovers songs his mother recorded with her hippie sister before disaster struck the drug-impacted band. In 'The Name of the Game' a mother attempts to recover the errors of her deceased husband in making a life for her son, unknowingly at odds with her son's true needs and goals. A mother faces the infamy of her priest son when his history of sexual abuse surfaces in 'A Priest in the Family', and in 'A Summer Job' the devotion of a son to his grandmother overshadows his relationship to his mother. In 'Three Friends' and 'A Long Winter' T?ib?n delicately and with subtle sensitivity introduces same sex themes to embroider stories of strong and powerful tales. For this reader 'A Long Winter' (the longest of the stories) is so excellent it could be stretched into an entire novel! T?ib?n finds unique lines of communication among his characters, some with words, others with quiescent descriptors, and the flow of his use of the English language peppered with bits and pieces of both Irish culture and Spanish concepts (in 'The Long Winter') is lyrical, pungent and abundantly enriching to read. His mind is fertile and his style of writing is full of grace and feeling. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp
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Great Enigma New Collected Poems
by
Tomas Transtromer
Grady
, January 22, 2007
The Scandinavian World of the Sea and the Elements of Nature Tomas Transtr?mer is a Swedish poet who is one of the strongest and most frequently honored artists of the time. Robin Fulton has translated and curated the bulk of Transtr?mer's published poems in this magnificent book THE GREAT ENIGMA: NEW COLLECTED POEMS and it is a rare treat. In one tome are some of the most moving conversations with and about nature this reader has ever read. Transtr?mer's ability to alter the landscape of the sea and the cliffs, the islands and havens, with an imagination that defies comparison: it is a staggering achievement. Able to succeed in both the very short and the epic form, he finds those niches in our psyches and makes them into words we could never generate. 'It's spring and the air is very strong. I have graduated from the university of oblivion and am as empty-handed as the shirt on the clothesline.' Perhaps it is his training and practice as a psychologist that allows his entry into our heads the way few other poets can achieve. A solid (yet one of many equally powerful) examples would be the following 'Sailor's Yarn': 'There are bare winter days when the sea is kin to mountain country, crouching in grey plumage, a grief minute blue, long hours with waves like pale lynxes vainly seeking hold in the beach gravel. On such a day wrecks might come from the sea searching for their owners, settling in the town's din, and drowned crews blow landward, thinner than pipe smoke. (The real lynxes are in the north, with sharpened claws and dreaming eyes. In the north, where day lives in a mine both day and night. Where the sole survivor may sit at the borealis stove and listen to the music of those frozen to death.)' Few collections of poetry are as satisfying as this and to Robin Fulton's translations must go a lot of the credit. This book is stimulus for the adventurous imagination as well as for the lover of great sea songs. Highly recommended. Grady Harp
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Grief
by
Andrew Holleran
Grady
, December 29, 2006
A Near Perfect Novel of Luminous Prose Andrew Holleran may not be the most prolific writer on the scene ('The Beauty of Men', 'In September, the Light Changes', 'Dancer from the Dance', 'Nights in Aruba') but he most assuredly one of our finest. His extraordinarily well-crafted novels, novellas, and short stories can be appreciated on many levels - interest of theme (Holleran is one of the few writers who find writing about gay life as natural a topic for creating universal themes as any other), quality of prose (liquid, rich in imagery and atmosphere, and creatively eloquent), and pertinence of philosophy. In a brief 150 pages Holleran relates via an unnamed narrator the experiences of life in its brevity and death in its finality. Having moved from Florida where he had been the caretaker of his ill mother with whom he never discussed his life as a gay man and suffers from her loss as well as his own regret that he never allowed his mother to know him, our narrator accepts a university job in Washington, DC teaching a seminar on AIDS and its impact on literature. He rents a room from a middle-aged gay man whose home on Dupont Circle has seen a failed relationship and whose presence is absence: these two men avoid communication that might uncover secrets painfully buried in each man's private grief. Aside from his teaching and occasional walking (Washington has rarely been so beautifully described in words of a novel) and talking with an old friend, his only activity is reading the letters of Mary Todd Lincoln written after the death of the President, pages that mirror the life and times of the men who populate this story. There is no true beginning or end in this treatise on the sanctity of life, yet it allows Holleran to interject some of the more slowly meaningful passages he has yet written. In referring to his landlord 'the problem was that we were both too polite. Manners are counterproductive when they make you wonder about a person's true feelings'. In describing the nation's capital as a living space '...Washington, I thought, where life was so comfortable because it was so artificial, as if living under a glass roof, or in some parlor where a boy was laid amidst the lilies'. And 'At every concert...there was a piece - sometimes only a passage - that made you feel someone else (the composer) has understood, had known, your grief, that life was worth living because of music. At the same time, this music...also made it clear that you had been fooling yourself in attempting to go on with your life...'. And yet Holleran has not written a book about terminal depression. In the end he quotes the mother of one of his friends who'd died from AIDS: ('How do you make amends when the person you wronged is dead?') 'I suppose by doing something good to those who are still alive. I think often of a line from Sophocles - we have all eternity to please the dead, but only a little while to love the living.' And the sweet brevity of life glows in Holleran's words. This is not only a fine work of literature: this is also incandescent writing about living. And it is one of the finer books of the year. Grady Harp
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Master Of Seacliff
by
Max Pierce
Grady
, December 27, 2006
A Finely Wrought Gothic Thriller with a Contemporary Twist Max Pierce seems to be a writer to watch. He understands the fine art of mystery storytelling, finding that magic of the past great writers who doted on dark old mansions that held their secrets of murder and mayhem much like an old spinster creaking in her attic rocking chair. But Pierce introduces a taboo subject of the time in which he sets this intriguing tale (1899 in America) and in doing so refreshes his story for a new audience of Romance aficionados. He populates his engrossing yarn with handsome men (yes, and women) most of whom appear connected by their closeted sexuality!Seacliff, the name of the elegant but darkly invested mansion somewhere along the coast above New York City, hides secrets of two significant murders that happened some eight years before the story begins. The narrator is a young artist Andrew who timidly accepts the role as tutor for the son of the wealthy Duncan Stewart, the virile and powerful scion of the estate whose wife has died without an heir for Duncan (a situation remedied by a quick trip to a gypsy in Paris), replacing a young pianist who left the estate under mysterious circumstances. Gossip and secrets suggest that the murders of Duncan's father and one Albert may have been at the hand of Duncan himself, but other mysteries cloud the mansion: the daughter of the housekeepers apparently committed suicide in a leap off the cliffs when she learned of her beloved's suspicious death; her mute son remains in the household tied to cemetery visits; the butler is inordinately dour and suspicious; the neighboring estate is owned by a brother and sister - the brother being gay and the sister a bit too compassionate. Pierce slowly unveils the fact that gay relationships existed between the murdered men, the neighbor and the pianist with Duncan, and that similar forces are at work to bring the new tutor Andrew into the murky trysts. And simultaneously the true stories of the many deaths that hang in the past gradually are uncovered. It is a lot of story to condense but Pierce writes with such uncanny attention to detail and to keeping the language and atmosphere of 1899 in place that he creates a page-turning thriller that keeps the reader guessing up to the final page.Gothic horror, interrelated murders and suicides, past and present gay relationships, and exploration of a time when a staff of servants underlined the intrigue of the old mansions all make THE MASTER OF SEACLIFF and absorbing new novel. Pierce's elegant prose puts it all into perspective, keeping the sensual aspects alive but related in the tenor of the times. By the end of the novel, closing the covers, the reader satisfyingly reflects on the forbidden love affairs the walls of Seacliff had seen and how those gay trysts opened such strange events that made the discoveries of perpetrators so fascinating. Grady Harp
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Brief Encounters With Che Guevara
by
Ben Fountain
Grady
, September 20, 2006
The Very Fine Art of Short Story Writing: Ben Fountain Arrives One hint that a writer of short stories or novellas or even full novels for that matter is the sense given to the reader that all of the information is so solidly shared that the writer must be speaking from autobiographical stance. Yet all we gather from the brief jacket bit about Ben Fountain is that he has won some impressive literary awards, is editor of Southwest Review, and lives in Texas with his little family! There is nothing to suggest a world traveler who has grown into the soil of the various parts of the world he molds into his stories. We are left with the conclusion that Fountain is simply a brilliant writer - and that is even more impressive. Eight stories are served with exquisite writing technique, fastidious attention to detail, and an endless imagination for bizarre events that serve as a stage for characters at once participating in the darker elements of the world's doings while finding some sense of exotica on a planet that has heretofore seemed so blas?. He takes us to Haiti, explores cocaine trafficking there by both the innocent poor folk observers and the corrupt police force; he follows a devoted ornithologist in captivity in Colombia who gains insight into Revolution; he examines a strange relationship between a young lady and her older diamond hunting mate in Sierra Leone ('Being an American these days, that's sort of like being a walking joke, right?'); he follows a bumbling golf pro whose sad life catches up with him in Myanmar; he takes us back to the turn of the 20th century to uncover a child piano prodigy who is able to play a Fantasy for piano written by a pianist who shared her deformity of having eleven fingers; he deals with a couple who must cope with the husband's 'co-marriage' to a Haitian voodoo goddess; and he obsesses on tales of encounters with the ever-popular Che Guevara. With each story he transports us wholly to the place of action and the interstices of the minds of the character he paints. Though this reader has not been to Haiti, Sierra Leone or Myanmar to check the reality of Fountain's prose descriptions there, the world of music for the piano is close enough to have profound respect for his writings about piano technique and music history and Vienna. Fountain MAKES us believe his stories, tales that are more like histories than fiction, so well drawn are they. Here is a writer of inordinate gifts. We can only hope he is busy at work crafting a novel to see how well his brief stories can be transported into extended form. Ben Fountain is most assuredly an author to watch! Highly recommended.
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House Beautiful A Novel Of High Ideals
by
Allison Burnett
Grady
, September 18, 2006
The Further Adventures of B.K. Troop Allison Burnett has succeeded in creating a literary character so unique and thoroughly painted that in his first novel CHRISTOPHER B.K. Troop emerged as a middle aged, overweight, fussy, alcoholic gay man whose distorted views of his world provided us with some of the finest comic writing of the past few years. Happily, Burnett has given us another installment in what many of us hope will be a continuing saga of this strangely loveable dreamer.B.K. Troop has just inherited a Manhattan brownstone from his beloved friend Sasha Buchwitz, allowing him to move form his meager quarters into a large house he calls The House Beautiful ? with large mortgage payments, payments he can only meet by taking in renters. This event opens the opportunity for Troop to fulfill his dream of being the muse and champion of artists. By advertising the rooms in his new edifice as ?low rent? he attracts artists of all types - the sole proviso being that those selected as tenants repay his generosity by actively pursuing their particular art form.And so we gradually meet his tenants: Carl Alan Dealy is a hygienically challenged actor waiting for audition calls that never come; Michael is a philosopher whose musings on his own character serve as fodder for his writings; Mary Pilago is a lesbian singer-songwriter who concentrates more on transient bed mates than on practicing her guitar and singing; Miranda Buchner is an Expressionist painter waiting for her ?big show? while she pines for Michael?s attentions; Louise D?Aprix is a writer committed to her typewriter to create the longest novel ever written. Into this hot bed of artists playing their desires for are against their escapades with sensual needs enters one Adrian Malloy, a very young lad carrying a garbage bag of what Troop perceives as vast pages of poetry and writings. In reality Adrian is an astronomy student who has fled to Manhattan to escape his confining Midwest home of his recently deceased parents, people with oddly occult ties to the unknowing Troop!How Troop influences the lives of these characters (while simultaneously dealing with his new lover, Vietnamese cook Pip who proves to be a truly colorful number!) is the playing field on which Burnett weaves his fascinatingly integrated tales from another city (in some ways related to Armisted Maupin?s San Francisco ?Tales of the City? series). Troop may be a demanding queen but he is also the loving and caring stimulus for those disparate but co-dependent tenants. His particular devotion to drawing out the ?poet? in Adrian is witty and wise and lovely. ?A biologist is able to tell you why a fly is able to sustain itself in flight. Only a port can describe why it annoys you.?Burnett?s gift (and a superb writer he is!) lies in his ability to create strong characters, exploring each of them thoroughly while very carefully maintaining an interaction among all of them. Each artist contributes at times inadvertently but always cohesively to the changes that occur in the summer of communal living. But always at the helm is the wholly engrossing B.K. Troop, besieged by misadventures in love, at times hilarious but with equal portions of compassion as a true Impresario. Think Diaghilev, Tennessee Williams, Divine, with a dollop of Gertrude Stein and Troop begins to come into focus. Burnett knows his craft well. He is simply wildly entertaining while remaining a highly literate and brilliant writer. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, September 06
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