Biographies & Memoirs | IN THE BOOKS

Posts Tagged ‘Biographies & Memoirs

Jun

The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, Inspired America, Robert F. Kennedy

The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America
By Thurston Clarke

Product Description

The definitive account of Robert Kennedy’s exhilarating and tragic 1968 campaign for president—a revelatory history that is especially resonant now

After John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Robert Kennedy—formerly Jack’s no-holds-barred political warrior—almost lost hope. He was haunted by his brother’s murder, and by the nation’s seeming inabilities to solve its problems of race, poverty, and the war in Vietnam. Bobby sensed the country’s pain, and when he announced that he was running for president, the country united behind his hopes. Over the action-packed eighty-two days of his campaign, Americans were inspired by Kennedy’s promise to lead them toward a better time. And after an assassin’s bullet stopped this last great stirring public figure of the 1960s, crowds lined up along the country’s railroad tracks to say goodbye to Bobby.

With new research, interviews, and an intimate sense of Kennedy, Thurston Clarke provides an absorbing historical narrative that goes right to the heart of America’s deepest despairs—and most fiercely held dreams—and tells us more than we had understood before about this complicated man and the heightened personal, racial, political, and national dramas of his times.

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #117 in Books
Published on: 2008-05-27
Released on: 2008-05-27
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
336 pages

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Amazon Best of the Month, June 2008: When Senator Robert F. Kennedy entered the presidential race during the chaotic year of 1968, anarchy appeared to be gathering on the horizon. America was coming to grips with an unwinnable war in Vietnam and unacceptable social policies at home. The Last Campaign examines Kennedy’s bold (and tragically shortened) efforts to awaken his country’s social conscience and moral sensibility. In contrast to the cocksure attitude of Thirteen Days (RFK’s own 1962 memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis), Thurston Clarke reveals a very human politician who often trembled at the podium and scanned crowds for an assassin’s glare. Though motivated to serve by an unwavering desire to help the poor and oppressed, Kennedy also lived with a deep fear that his life would be cut short by violence. “I’m afraid there are guns between me and the White House,” he prophetically remarked during the spring of ’68. Yet The Last Campaign chooses not to explore what could have been. Instead, Clarke focuses on what is certain: for an 82-day period, Kennedy “convinced millions of Americans that he was a good man, perhaps a great man.” –Dave Callanan

Exclusive Q&A with Author Thurston Clarke

Kennedy during a 1967 visit to the Mississippi Delta where he found children starving in windowless shacks.

Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and his brother, President John F. Kennedy, conferring at the White House.

Kennedy discussing the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. with press secretary Frank Mankiewicz on April 4, 1968.

Amazon.com: He was a Presidential candidate for less than 100 days – why does the name Bobby Kennedy continue to resonate today?

Clarke: The fact that he was the brother of a beloved and martyred president, and that he was also assassinated are of course important factors. But I think Bobby Kennedy continues to be relevant because he tackled issues such as race, poverty, and an ill-advised and unpopular war that remain relevant. And not only did he address these issues but he addressed them with an honesty and passion that no other president or politician has equaled since 1968.

Amazon.com: Despite his own fears, Kennedy made himself dangerously accessible to crowds. Was this an act of defiance or conviction?

Clarke: It was both defiance and conviction.

Speaking of President Johnson’s bubble-topped, bulletproof limousine, he told a reporter, “I’ll tell you one thing: if I’m elected President, you won’t find me riding around in any of those God-damned cars. We can’t have that kind of country, where the President is afraid to go among the people.” When his aides (who were worried about his safety throughout the campaign) urged him to spend more time campaigning from television studios and less time plunging into crowds, he told them, “There are so many people who hate me that I’ve got to let the people who love me see me.” Kennedy also knew that crowds revived him-“like a couple of drinks,” according to aide Fred Dutton-and that letting people see him in person was the best way to prove that his reputation for being “ruthless” was unmerited.

Amazon.com: Hypothetical questions achingly surround Bobby Kennedy and his legacy. Did any single “What if?” occupy your thoughts as you researched this book? Kennedy campaigning in Los Angeles during 1968

Clarke: Several “What ifs” haunted me.

Kennedy had wanted to avoid going to the Ambassador Hotel on the evening of June 4, 1968 and instead watch the returns at the home of John Frankenheimer. The networks, however, protested that they needed him at the hotel for interviews and wanted to cover the victory celebration live if he won. Kennedy caved in and went to the hotel.

Kennedy always went through the crowd in a ballroom or auditorium after speaking, and became angry with aides who tried to hustle him out a back door. But on the night of his assassination, he broke his own rule and went through the hotel pantry where Sirhan Sirhan was waiting.

And what if he had won the nomination and become president? I doubt that there would have been riots at the Democratic convention in Chicago that year — riots that helped elect Richard Nixon to the presidency and that have proven to be an albatross around the neck of Democrats for forty years. A President Robert Kennedy would have withdrawn America from Vietnam soon and there would be fewer names on the Vietnam wall. There would have been no bombing of Cambodia, Kent State, or Watergate, and so on, and so on.

Amazon.com: Kennedy’s campaign strategy was fraught with risk, as one observer remarked that “he kept hammering away at the plight of the poor when there was more chance for political loss than gain.” Had Bobby simply had enough with politics as usual?

Clarke: Kennedy’s obsession with the plight of America’s poor was more the result of his own personal experiences than any rejection of politics as usual. He had held a starving child in his arms in Mississippi. He had visited the appalling schools on Indian reservations where students learned nothing about their own culture and history. He had tramped through tenements in Brooklyn and come upon a girl whose face had been disfigured by rat bites. He believed that he had a responsibility to educate the American people about these conditions.

During a flight on his chartered campaign plane he told Sylvia Wright of Life magazine, “. . . for every two or three days that you waste time making speeches at rallies full of noise and balloons, there’s usually a chance every two or three days . . . where you get a chance to teach people something; and to tell them something that they don’t know because they don’t have the chance to get around like I do, to take them some place vicariously that they haven’t been, to show them a ghetto, or an Indian reservation.” And it was moments like these, Kennedy told Wright, that made a political campaign, despite all its banalities and indignities, “worth it.”

Amazon.com: In your opinion, will we ever see another Bobby Kennedy? Have we become too jaded to embrace a candidate like RFK or has campaigning simply become political theater?

Clarke: One of the aides who scheduled many of Kennedy’s appearances that spring, told me, “What he did was not really that mystical. All it requires is someone who knows himself, and has some courage.”

Review

“A stunning, heartbreaking book, a reminder–which we badly need these days–of just how noble public life can be. Robert Kennedy’s brief, passionate 1968 presidential campaign set a standard of courage and candor and sheer gorgeous language that is unlikely ever to be equaled. This is a book worthy of the man and that moment, an honorable and unforgettable piece of work. The Last Campaign should be required reading for anyone seeking public office, and for the rest of us, too.”—Joe Klein

“The Last Campaign is a great read, an evocative and engaging reminder of the glory and the tragedy of Bobby Kennedy’s run for the presidency in 1968. Thurston Clarke’s keen eye for the telling detail and his fast-paced narrative make The Last Campaign a must-have for any student of American politics.”—Tom Brokaw

“The Last Campaign is a triumphant look at Robert F. Kennedy’s heartfelt plunge into the poverty underbelly of America. The reader can’t help but be moved at how deeply Kennedy cared about the underclass. Thurston Clarke has written a smart political book which actually inspires.”—Douglas Brinkley

“The Last Campaign is a magnificent account of the final months in the life of a man who changed so many of us, and the brilliantly told story of a campaign that broke our hearts.”—E.J. Dionne, author of Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right

“Tremendously moving….Clarke compellingly recreates this “huge, joyous adventure”….Kennedy’s gradual but determined evolution into a fearless, formidable, winning candidate makes stupendous reading. The hope he inspired….still proves instructive and pertinent, especially in this election year. Generous without being slavish, beautifully capturing Kennedy’s passion and dignity.”—Kirkus (starred review)

“…revealing as an iconic portrait of the passionate, turbulent zeitgeist of the 1960s.”—Publisher’s Weekly

“I’ll be shocked if I read a more devastatingly beautiful book than Thurston Clarke’s The Last Campaign… this year…. Robert F. Kennedy’s moral imagination shines in this book, so brightly, so compassionately, so full of literature and light and sacrifice, that it will haunt many readers who had hoped matters of war, poverty and inequality might have been solved 40 years ago.”—The Austin American-Statesman

“. . .The Last Campaign, a beautifully written and emotionally powerful examination of Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. . . Thurston Clarke has built The Last Campaign on an incredible amount of research, both archival and through hundreds of interviews with those who knew Kennedy best. The result is a vivid, intimate, historical portrait of a candidate who knew how to speak to an electorate amid troubled times. . . Clarke’s book will break your heart but it may also relieve your cynicism, reminding all of us that candidates need not pander to succeed.”—The Christian Science Monitor

“. . .The Last Campaign succeeds in framing a picture within a picture of a seminal year that reverberates to this day.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“. . .very well written and offers a ringside seat on tumultuous times.”—Mike Barry

“Clarke’s findings help to explain the divisions that have riven this nation for a generation. Heed this book, therefore, for the ideals and resentments that dominated that election are starkly similar to the ones facing today’s voters.”—The Miami Herald

“Mr. Clarke advances at a sprightly pace, has a keen eye for detail and captures not only the externals but the fascinating inner dynamics of the contest…. Captures [Kennedy’s] transformation with skill, showing R.F.K. emerging, page by page, into a brilliant and utterly iconoclastic politician over those short months on the trail.”—Ted Widmer, The New York Observer

“The images from “The Last Campaign,” Thurston Clarke’s powerful account of Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign for the presidency…impel themselves on the reader, touching chords of memory and sorrow.”—Michael Kenney, The Boston Globe

“A vivid portrait of a politician coming to a moral reckoning.”—David Ulin, The Los Angeles Times Book Review

“A ride inside the spinning bubble of [Kennedy’s] frenzied, idealistic, doomed campaign. [Clarke’s] discussion of the politics of class and race—the “backlash whites” in Indiana, the affluent antiwar voters in Oregon—proves remarkably topical, as is the moral challenge of Kennedy’s speeches on poverty.”—The New Yorker

“Clarke’s stirring narrative takes readers back to the late 1960s, that idealistic, hopeful—then tragic—time in history.”—Times-Picayune

“. . . an exhilarating read. . . passionate retelling.”—Gilbert Cruz, TIME

“. . . Clarke comes away with a focused, unique and worthy discovery of what happened during those two and a half months.”—J. Taylor Rushing, The Hill, TheHill.com

“. . . a fine addition to the Kennedy canon.”—Todd Leopold, CNN.com

“Well-reported and well-written.”—The Dallas Morning News, Steve Weinberg

“. . . takes a detailed and fascinating look at the period. . . “—Greg Morano, Hartford Courant

About the Author
Thurston Clarke has written eleven widely acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, including three New York Times Notable Books. His Pearl Harbor Ghosts was the basis of a CBS documentary, and his bestselling Lost Hero, a biography of Raoul Wallenberg, was made into an award-winning NBC miniseries. His articles have appeared in Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Washington Post and many other publications. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and other awards and lives with his wife and three daughters in upstate New York.

Customer Reviews

to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world…
Thurston Clarke has written one of the most emotionally charged and inspiring books I have ever read. I was 9 years old when RFK was assassinated, much too young to understand the ramifications. I do remember my older sister sobbing uncontrollably, and just repeating, they killed him, they killed him. RFK’s Last Campaign was his legacy and he knew it, he knew the day would come that he would be assasinated yet he strove to raise all of us up. Up to a higher standard of caring for each other and raising the conciousness of this nation up. RFK asked, I dream of things that never were, and ask why not? He gave and he gave until he had no more to give and then he rested and got back to work. A couragous leader who was different because he spoke as to what he truly believed and he truly believed what he spoke. Rarely have I ever felt so much emotion while reading a book, RFK’s soul and spirit are truly captured in this gem of a book. It made me think hard about what I can do to be a better person and examine my own moral courage. RFK defined moral courage and we can only ask ourselves, what if RFK had been president?
“What if” — The question still haunts us today
I was born in 1970 so don’t have first hand perspective of the 60s or RFKs presidential campaign. However, I’ve always been fascinated by the decade, one of the most tumultuous, calamitous and important decades in our country’s history. While many figures loom large over the 60s, one can make the case that the two figures who loom largest over that decade are MLK and RFK. They carried the hope and promise that JFK ushered in with his presidency until the latter part of the decade and their assassinations slammed shut that optimism a mere two months apart.

Clarke does a masterful job capturing the gestalt of the time pitch perfectly and the impact of RFKs presidential campaign through the course of those 82 days. To start, one must realize the difference in presidential elections today vs. this time period. The primaries were not nearly as important as they are today. The political machine still dominated the party selection process and Kennedy faced near insurmountable challenges as he entered the race from the Democratic party establishment. He recognized that he had to basically hit a home run in the remaining primaries to convince delegates to turn their support to him because of popular support of Democratic votes. May of the establishment viewed him as “ruthless” and “opportunistic” and we see how this was reinforced after McCarthy’s surprise showing in New Hampshire and Kennedy’s decision to jump in the race soon after that. I found Clarke’s account of Kennedy’s announcement and first speech at Kansas State moving. Today, politicians stump speeches are carefully crafted, crowds controlled to ensure no hostile questions and control so tight to prevent any extemporaneous occurrence that might spread like wildfire across the internet. Kansas State was not that environment and Kennedy demonstrated the traits and attributes during that night that would make his improbable run to the Presidency become an almost certain nomination as he won the California primary (and started to convince the party machine that he should be the Democratic nominee).

Clarke captures all the inherent contradictions of RFK — his strengths, weaknesses — and one gets a close personal “ride” through the whirlwind campaign trail. We see an RFK haunted by JFK’s assassination and the realization that the same fate might befall him. (Clarke shares moments of balloons popping or other similar situations that caused RFK to recoil as if a gun was shot) We witness Kennedy’s disdain for public speaking, comfort with the poor and under-privileged, moral conviction about race and poverty as central campaign themes, in spite of the advice of his advisers. We relive his campaign and amazing victory in Indiana – including the night of April 4th in Indianapolis when he stood in front of an African-American crowd in the inner city (a place the police refused to go to provide him protection that night) and probably was as big a reason Indianapolis was spared the riots that broke out across almost all other major American cities.

I wish this book didn’t end – then again, that is much similar to the legacy that RFK left and especially his presidential campaign. We are left wondering what if to many questions – knowing that if RFK had lived, certainly the course of the following months of 1968 would have been different, maybe even the next four or eight years. Hope and optimism would give way to despair and disillusionment – more violence and death in Southeast Asia and at Kent State, Watergate – and we are forced to relive those 82 days and only imagine “What if”.

Align your expectations
So long as you realize up front that this book is something of a manifesto, a plea for another Bobby Kennedy (the author definitely sees parallels with the 1968 and the 2008 election . . . perhaps seeing Obama as the heir-apparent to RFK?), then you’ll enjoy it. The author makes no pretense about his admiration for RFK and his desire to see another one like him.

But it is a mistake just to write this book off as another Kennedy tribute. First of all, it is well-written and readable. The book flows very well and keeps you interested throughout. It provides a pretty detailed chronicle of the campaign and does a good job of showing the evolution of RFK and his campaign advisers over time.

Secondly, this book is as much about a longing for a certain style of campaigning as it is about a person. Hence the book’s subtitle–82 days that inspired America. Sadly, I think, for the author, he had to use the words “inspired” rather than “changed,” because in many ways, politics has gone on its usual path (or gotten worse) despite what he views as the one modern-day example of elevated political discourse and real human concern. I personally have always been fascinated by Bobby Kennedy. I was born after he was already dead, but he interests me because he seems to be impossible to pin down ideologically. I find that it unusual (though not strange) that he is a liberal icon. I tend to be in cautious agreement with the author about Kennedy, and thought this book was well-done and worthwhile, both for those who still long for RFK and those who don’t. It strikes me that all politicians would benefit from trying to understand what it was about RFK’s campaign that captured the imagination of so many people. This book is a step forward in that regard.

Jun

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey

By arpijikii Leave a Comment

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, consciousness, Personal Journey, possibility

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey
By Jill Bolte Taylor

Product Description

A brain scientist’s journey from a debilitating stroke to full recovery becomes an inspiring exploration of human consciousness and its possibilities

On the morning of December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist, experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. A neuroanatomist by profession, she observed her own mind completely deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life, all within the space of four brief hours. As the damaged left side of her brain–the rational, grounded, detail- and time-oriented side–swung in and out of function, Taylor alternated between two distinct and opposite realties: the euphoric nirvana of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace; and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized Jill was having a stroke, and enabled her to seek help before she was lost completely.

In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her unique perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this unusual and inspiring voyage out of the abyss of a wounded brain. It would take eight years for Taylor to heal completely. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, her respect for the cells composing her human form, and most of all an amazing mother, Taylor completely repaired her mind and recalibrated her understanding of the world according to the insights gained from her right brain that morning of December 10th.

Today Taylor is convinced that the stroke was the best thing that could have happened to her. It has taught her that the feeling of nirvana is never more than a mere thought away. By stepping to the right of our left brains, we can all uncover the feelings of well-being and peace that are so often sidelined by our own brain chatter. A fascinating journey into the mechanics of the human mind, My Stroke of Insight is both a valuable recovery guide for anyone touched by a brain injury, and an emotionally stirring testimony that deep internal peace truly is accessible to anyone, at any time.

Questions for Jill Bolte Taylor

Amazon.com: Your first reaction when you realized what was happening to your body was one you would expect: “Oh my gosh, I’m having a stroke!” Your second, though, was a little more surprising: “Wow, this is so cool!” What could be cool about a stroke?

Taylor: I grew up to study the brain because I have a brother who is only 18 months older than I am. He was very different in the way he perceived experiences and then chose to behave. As a result, I became fascinated with the human brain and how it creates our perception of reality. He was eventually diagnosed with the brain disorder schizophrenia, and I dedicated my career to the postmortem investigation of the human brain in an attempt to understand, at a biological level, what are the differences between my brain and my brother’s brain. On the morning of the stroke, I realized that my brain was no longer functioning like a “normal” brain and this insight into my brother’s reality excited me. I was fascinated to intimately understand what it might be like on the inside for someone who would not be diagnosed as normal. Through the eyes of a curious scientist, this was an absolutely rare and fascinating experience for me to witness the breakdown of my own mind.

Amazon.com: What did you learn about the brain from your stroke and your recovery that your scientific training hadn’t prepared you for?

Taylor: My scientific training did not teach me anything about the human spirit and the value of compassion. I had been trained as a scientist, not as a clinician. I can only hope that we are teaching our future physicians about compassion in medicine, and I know that some medical schools, including the Indiana University School of Medicine, have created a curriculum with this intention.

My training as a scientist, however, did provide me with a roadmap to how the body and brain work. And although I lost my left cognitive mind that thinks in language, I retained my right hemisphere that thinks in pictures. As a result, although I could not communicate with the external world, I had an intuitive understanding about what I needed to do in order to create an environment in which the cells in my brain could be happy and healthy enough that they could regain their function. In addition, because of my training, I had an innate trust in the ability of my brain to be able to recover itself and my mother and I respected the organ by listening to it. For example, when I was tired, I allowed my brain to sleep, and when I was fresh and capable of focusing my attention, we gave me age-appropriate toys and tools with which to work.

Amazon.com: Your stroke affected functions in your left brain, leaving you to what you call the “la-la land” of your right hemisphere. What was it like to live in your right brain, and then to rebuild your left?

Taylor: When the cells in my left brain became nonfunctional because they were swimming in a pool of blood, they lost their ability to inhibit the cells in my right hemisphere. In my right brain, I shifted into the consciousness of the present moment. I was in the right here, right now awareness, with no memories of my past and no perception of the future. The beauty of La-la land (my right hemisphere experience of the present moment) was that everything was an explosion of magnificent stimulation and I dwelled in a space of euphoria. This is great way to exist if you don’t have to communicate with the external world or care whether or not you have the capacity to learn. I found that in order for me to be able to learn anything, however, I had to take information from the last moment and apply it to the present moment. When my left hemisphere was completely nonfunctional early on, it was impossible for me to learn, which was okay with me, but I am sure it was frustrating for those around me. A simple example of this was trying to put on my shoes and socks. I eventually became physically capable of putting my shoes and socks on, but I had no ability to understand why I would have to put my socks on before my shoes. To me they were simply independent actions that were not related and I did not have the cognitive ability to figure out the appropriate sequencing of the events. Over time, I regained the ability to weave moments back together to create an expanse of time, and with this ability came the ability to learn methodically again. Life in La-la land will always be just a thought away, but I am truly grateful for the ability to think with linearity once again.

Amazon.com: What can we learn about our brains and ourselves from your experience, even if we haven’t lived through the kind of brain trauma you have?

Taylor: I learned that I have much more say about what goes on between my ears than I was ever taught and I believe that this is true for all of us. I used to understand that I had the ability to stop thinking about one thing by consciously choosing to preoccupy my mind with thinking about something else. But I had no idea that it only took 90 seconds for me to have an emotional circuit triggered, flush a physiological response through my body and then flush completely out of me. We can all learn that we can take full responsibility for what thoughts we are thinking and what emotional circuitry we are feeling. Knowing this and acting on this can lead us into feeling a wonderful sense of well-being and peacefulness.

Amazon.com: You are the “Singin’ Scientist” for Harvard’s Brain Bank (just as you were before your stroke). Could you tell us about the Brain Bank (in song or not)?

Taylor: There is a long-term shortage of brain tissue donated for research into the severe mental illnesses. Most people don’t realize that when you sign the back of your license as an organ donor, the brain is not included. If you would like to donate your brain for research, you must contact a brain bank directly. There is also a shortage of “normal control” tissue for research. The bottom line reality is that if there were more tissue available for research, then more scientists would be dedicating their careers to the study of the severe mental illnesses and we would have more answers about what is going on with these disorders. The numbers of mentally ill individuals in our society are staggering. The most serious and disabling conditions affect about 6 percent–or one in 17–adults and 9-13 percent of children in the United States. Half of all lifetime conditions of mental illness start by age 14 years, and three-fourths by age 24 years.

For more information about brain donation to the Harvard brain bank, please call 1-800-BRAINBANK or visit them at: http://www.brainbank.mclean.org

If you would like to hear me sing the brain bank jingle, please visit http://www.drjilltaylor.com!

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #10 in Books
Published on: 2008-05-14
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
192 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review
[T]here is comfort in better grasping what has gone wrong, and enlightenment for those around you when they grasp it too. None of us needs sympathy; what we do need is a helping hand and understanding. Someone like Taylor provides that, helping a terrible blow become far less so.
– Dick Clark, in Time Magazine 100 Most Influential People of 2008

Fascinating. . . . Bursts with hope for everyone who is brain-injured (not just stroke patients) and gives medical practitioners clear, no-nonsense information about the shortcomings of conventional treatment and attitudes toward the brain- injured. . . . But to my mind, what makes My Stroke of Insight not just valuable but invaluablea gift to every spiritual seeker and peace activistis what I would describe as Taylors fearless mapping of the physiology of compassion, the physiology of Nirvana. This book is about the wonder of being human.
Robert Koehler, Tribune Media Services

About the Author
Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. is a neuroanatomist who is affiliated with the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. She is the national spokesperson for the mentally ill at the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center (Brain Bank) and the consulting neuroantomist for the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute (MPRI). Since 1993 she has been an active member of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). She was named one of Time magazines 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2008.

Customer Reviews

Who is telling this story?
As a result of the stroke, the author’s left cerebral hemisphere was severely impaired. The author tells us what this loss implies: “My left hemisphere had been trained to perceive myself as a solid, separate from others. Now, released from that restrictive circuity, my right hemisphere relished in its attachments to the eternal flow. I was no longer isolated and alone. My soul was as big as the universe and frolicked with glee in a boundless sea.”

If you are a dualist, this story will make perfect sense to you. If you are not, you might find yourself asking, “Who is telling this story?” For example, “The now off-line intellectual mind of my left hemisphere no longer inhibited my innate awareness that I was the miraculous power of life.” This is a story that must have been invented by the author’s now-recovered left hemisphere, since it was “off-line” at the time. The story is told by a neuroanatomist but don’t be misled; it has little to do with neuroscience. The story is as much an invention as it is a report. How much of the story is confabulation? Is there any way for us, or even for the storyteller, to know? If you are looking for a pleasant fantasy, you won’t be disappointed. Look for your neuroscience somewhere else.

Survival at it’s best!
This is a wonderful story of survival and positive attitude that initiated healing. It should be a must read for anyone who has had a traumatic set back or even someone who just needs to be encouraged that not even adversity should stop you from making lemonade out of lemons.

everyone should read this!
I was interested in this book when I saw Dr. Taylor on the Oprah show. My mother had a massive stroke and lived on a feeding tube in a nursing home for two years before she died. This was a traumatic experience for me and I wanted to understand it. Dr. Taylor’s explanations are clear and concise. The list of what she wanted people to know about being in the initial stage of a stroke in valuable for us all.I wish I had had this book then.

Jun

My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

By arpijikii Leave a Comment

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, Chelsea Handler, life, true-life stories

My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands
By Chelsea Handler

Product Description

In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.

You’ve either done it or know someone who has: the one-night stand, the familiar outcome of a night spent at a bar, sometimes the sole payoff for your friend’s irritating wedding, or the only relief from a disastrous vacation. Often embarrassing and uncomfortable, occasionally outlandish, but most times just a necessary and irresistible evil, the one-night stand is a social rite as old as sex itself and as common as a bar stool.

Enter Chelsea Handler. Gorgeous, sharp, and anything but shy, Chelsea loves men and lots of them. My Horizontal Life chronicles her romp through the different bedrooms of a variety of suitors, a no-holds-barred account of what can happen between a man and a sometimes very intoxicated, outgoing woman during one night of passion. From her short fling with a Vegas stripper to her even shorter dalliance with a well-endowed little person, from her uncomfortable tryst with a cruise ship performer to her misguided rebound with a man who likes to play leather dress-up, Chelsea recalls the highs and lows of her one-night stands with hilarious honesty. Encouraged by her motley collection of friends (aka: her partners in crime) but challenged by her family members (who at times find themselves a surprise part of the encounter), Chelsea hits bottom and bounces back, unafraid to share the gritty details. My Horizontal Life is one guilty pleasure you won’t be ashamed to talk about in the morning.

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #52 in Books
Published on: 2005-06-06
Released on: 2005-05-12
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
213 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review
“Offbeat and laugh-out-loud-funny essays… smart, funny, and quick read.”
(Library Journal Review )

“Where have I been all of Chelsea Handler’s life? I had no idea how funny, how brilliant she is…she is too clever for words.”
(Liz Smith New York Post )

In a word: hilarious. In two: absolutely hilarious. These are some of the funniest stories I have ever read and they”re also some of the most unexpectedly heartfelt.”
(Laura Zigman, author of Animal Husbandry, Dating Big Bird, and Her )

“Chelsea Handler is a terrific comedian and a hilarious writer.”
(Jay Leno )

“This book is no-holds-barred hilarious.”
(Jennifer Weiner, author of In Her Shoes and Little Earthquakes )

“[Chelsea] just might be funnier than David Sedaris.”
(Dallas Observer )

“Prime reading material for anyone looking to laugh their hiney off.”
(About.com )

About the Author
Chelsea Handler was born in Livingston, New Jersey, and has toured the country doing stand-up. Now settled in Los Angeles, she can be seen at the Comedy Store and the Laugh Factory, and as one of the stars on Oxygen’s Girls Behaving Badly. Chelsea has guest-starred on programs such as Spy TV, My Wife and Kids, The Bernie Mac Show, and The Practice. Her stand-up will soon be televised on VH1’s Love Lounge, Comedy Central’s Premium Blend, and HBO’s broadcast of the Aspen Comedy Festival.

Customer Reviews

Good, but not her best.
I actually read Chelsea’s second book, Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, before I read this (her first book). After reading AYT,V?IM,C, I had high expectations for this book. To be honest, it did not live up to my expectations. After a few of the essays, it got better, but it never got as good as AYT,V?IM,C. I still enjoyed it, but you should read this one first, then read the other one.

Chelsea is a great writer, and I hope she continues to put out books. I have never read books as funny as her’s.

Have a laugh
Chelsea Handler’s book is really funny although I think I like the new one better. She has a lot of laugh out loud moments and I would recommend it to any of her fans.

Funny at times
This book had it’s funny parts. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I laughed aloud a couple times. Easy to read in an afternoon, but not quite as memorable as other memoirists.
David Sedaris, who writes memoirs is the master. And If you like knarly memoir humor, Laurie Notaro is excellent.

Jun

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

By arpijikii Leave a Comment

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs
Tags: Barack Obama, Biographies & Memoirs, memoir

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
By Barack Obama

Product Description

In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey—first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #92 in Books
Published on: 2004-08-10
Released on: 2004-08-10
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
480 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Obama argues with himself on almost every page of this lively autobiographical conversation. He gets you to agree with him, and then he brings in a counternarrative that seems just as convincing. Son of a white American mother and of a black Kenyan father whom he never knew, Obama grew up mainly in Hawaii. After college, he worked for three years as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side. Then, finally, he went to Kenya, to find the world of his dead father, his “authentic” self. Will the truth set you free, Obama asks? Or will it disappoint? Both, it seems. His search for himself as a black American is rooted in the particulars of his daily life; it also reads like a wry commentary about all of us. He dismisses stereotypes of the “tragic mulatto” and then shows how much we are all caught between messy contradictions and disparate communities. He discovers that Kenya has 400 different tribes, each of them with stereotypes of the others. Obama is candid about racism and poverty and corruption, in Chicago and in Kenya. Yet he does find community and authenticity, not in any romantic cliche{,}, but with “honest, decent men and women who have attainable ambitions and the determination to see them through.” Hazel Rochman

Customer Reviews

Thanks for this incitation to dream
This book is not a memoir or even Memoirs. It is a novel, a non-fictional true novel because life is a novel and even at times poetry, and Barack Obama is an absolutely perfect writer who captures the living texture of this life with gusto, taste and style. The book of course is a chase and search for the author’s father by the author himself as far as far can be, including in the green hills of Africa. But it is also a lot more. It is the discovery of family roots growing in two different soils, continents or even universes. But Barack Obama is not psychotic nor schizophrenic, so he tells us the story of how he brought unity to himself without in any way negating the dual carriage way of his personality. He shows and even demonstrates how one cannot be anything in life if one does not build that personal unity from the patchwork of their lives. Some of his brothers, or sisters, or parents succeed with various methods. Some others fail or at least linger in unsuccessful attempts. Now, that is only the first element of the book that makes it an autobiography of sort. It is though and yet a lot more and I am going to give only a few examples. I like his “Home Squared” or even Home Power Three or Home Tripled, or whatever. I will insist on the power element because this approach of home gives power to the subject. This power comes from the ability of the subject to join the immediate home environment in which he or she lives to the original family home from which he or she comes, that is to say the parents’ home that is in Obama’s case double since he knew his father at first as coming from Kenya seen as his home and he discovers that he came from what this father called his Home Squared, that is to say the home base of his father’s father. Obama’s conception of a human being seems to be such a piled up pyramid made of many tiers, strata, layers, one on top of the other in the present, one deeper than the other into the past, and what about the future that gets its inspiration from this heap of potentials and possible realizations of one’s dreams. This leads to a remark on authenticity that cannot be attached to one personal parameter connected to the outside world, including African-ness. Authenticity is attached to the contradictory unified patchwork that makes us what we are inside. I think Obama could easily reach beyond and add “at any discrete moment of one’s life”, no two moments even in close temporal succession being ever the same. We are ever changing and yet always the same, because we are what we see or even dream ourselves. The last point I will make is about his dynamic vision of the law. He knows the law can be seen as reflecting narrow-minded interests and greed. But he also knows that the law is a human creation that comes from the conversation between and among various individuals and circumstances reflecting the complex conflictive context of humanity at any moment in its history, a conversation that is aiming at creating balance and equilibrium even if in many cases it is biased and severely one-sided. But his phrase “a nation arguing with its conscience” is beautiful and worth sitting in any sacred corpus of canonical texts, including Goethe’s Faust Second Part. It is, and should always be, a canon of American culture because we hold such truths to be self evident.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Important Read for All Americans
This is a well-written and inspiring non-political account of an American’s life like no other. We can be a better people.

Best to read it through the prism of current events
I picked this book up because Obama most likely will be our next President. It seemed strange that this might happen and I had not yet read what was said to be his well received memoir. The book was published 13 years ago by someone whom Im sure never expected he would be a candidate for President. What politician with those ambitions would reveal so much about him self in a memoir? I wondered as I read along what my reaction might have been if I had picked this up in 1995. In presenting a review of the book one has a hard time separating Politian Obama from writer Obama. Obama is a good writer and he does a fairly good job of letting the reader into his thoughts and conflicts as he tries to search for an identify through his black father (and his extended family during visits to Kenya). Most of the book is a coming of age perspective on how Obama was raised by his white mother and grandparents in tolerant multi racial Hawaii and his search for his identity as a tolerant black man. You sense that Obama is observant of others, their views, cultures and belief systems. He seems interested in how various people establish their own value judgments. He makes observations much like a novelist and at one point I felt Obamas book read a bit like a Paul Theroux travel book without the sarcasm (Black Star Safari I think my recommendation of the book is contingent upon what you as a reader and voter want to know about Obamas background. What Obama offers up is more than you will get from any other politician. I doubt, however, that I would have finished the book if I had tried to read it in 1995. Although interesting, the narrative is not very compelling unless you read it through the prism of current events. (My three star review is based on reading this without the prism of current events.)

Jun

The Revolution: A Manifesto

By arpijikii Leave a Comment

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, Revolution, Ron Paul

The Revolution: A Manifesto
By Ron Paul

Product Description

This Much Is True: You Have Been Lied To.

The government is expanding.
Taxes are increasing.
More senseless wars are being planned.
Inflation is ballooning.
Our basic freedoms are disappearing.

The Founding Fathers didn’t want any of this. In fact, they said so quite clearly in the Constitution of the United States of America. Unfortunately, that beautiful, ingenious, and revolutionary document is being ignored more and more in Washington. If we are to enjoy peace, freedom, and prosperity once again, we absolutely must return to the principles upon which America was founded. But finally, there is hope . . .

In THE REVOLUTION,Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul has exposed the core truths behind everything threatening America, from the real reasons behind the collapse of the dollar and the looming financial crisis, to terrorism and the loss of our precious civil liberties. In this book, Ron Paul provides answers to questions that few even dare to ask.

Despite a media blackout, this septuagenarian physician-turned-congressman sparked a movement that has attracted a legion of young, dedicated, enthusiastic supporters . . . a phenomenon that has amazed veteran political observers and made more than one political rival envious. Candidates across America are already running as “Ron Paul Republicans.”

“Dr. Paul cured my apathy,” says a popular campaign sign. THE REVOLUTION may cure yours as well.

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #65 in Books
Published on: 2008-04
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
192 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review
“The real truth about Liberty. This book takes a wrecking ball to the political establishment. Senator Goldwater would have loved it — it’s The Conscience of a Conservative for the 21^st century.” (Barry M. Goldwater, Jr., former member of Congress )

About the Author
Ron Paul, a ten-term congressman from Texas, is the leading advocate of freedom in our nation’s capital. He has devoted his political career to the defense of individual liberty, sound money, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. Judge Andrew Napolitano calls him “the Thomas Jefferson of our day.”

After serving as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s, Dr. Paul moved to Texas to begin a civilian medical practice, delivering over four thousand babies in his career as an obstetrician. He served in Congress from 1976 to 1984, and again from 1996 to the present. He and Carol Paul, his wife of fifty-one years, have five children, eighteen grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

Ron Paul, the New York Post once wrote, is a politician who “cannot be bought by special interests.”

“There are few people in public life who, through thick and thin, rain or shine, stick to their principles,” added a congressional colleague. “Ron Paul is one of those few.”

Customer Reviews

A good short read – Paul would make a great VP to Obama
A very rational person with lots of good ideas. He should be given the job of cleaning up the crap in Washington

The Truth about Monetary Policy, Foreign Policy, and LIberty
The Revolution – A Manifesto, by Ron Paul was, by far the best book I have read since I read Unintended Consequences. It outlines in detail the problems with our bloated, and unconstitutional, federal government. It describes how our foreign policy, monetary policy, and domestic policy are all intertwined and are easily analogous to a house of cards. In the book, Dr. Ron Paul describes the true root problems of the debacle which is our current federal government, as well as how this house of cards will either collapse, as on its current course, or how we as a people can dismantle it. The book is worth its weight in gold (pun intended) and every person, liberal or conservative, adult or child, should read the plainly obvious future of our country. Buy the book! Buy two, so you can share it with your neighbor.

The revolution has begun!

Truth is so liberating in this day and age
Finally, a book that tells it like it is. Despite all of the differences in ideologies we all process, at the end of the day, we all lose if we let the political establishment continue their course. This book is not just about projecting an ideology – Instead, it’s Constitutional basis is one of foundation linked to data and history. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to become educated and enter into healthy debate. I will never look at the central banks, the media, and industry the same way.

Jun

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

By arpijikii Leave a Comment

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs
Tags: American success, Biographies & Memoirs, cultures, Elizabeth Gilbert

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
By Elizabeth Gilbert

Product Description

This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures, Gilbert explored the art of pleasure in Italy and the art of devotion in India, and then a balance between the two on the Indonesian island of Bali. By turns rapturous and rueful, this wise and funny author (whom Booklist calls Anne Lamotts hip, yoga- practicing, footloose younger sister) is poised to garner yet more adoring fans.

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #30 in Books
Published on: 2007-01-30
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
352 pages

Customer Reviews

Dissapointing? Yes. A waste of my time? Definitely not.
The last section of the book, which takes place in Bali, is definitely worthwhile getting to.

Great Search for Happiness Found in Obstacles
I was surprised at the many negative reviews of this book. To me, this book was a home run and presented a glimpse into what changes us. Yes,Elizabeth Gilbert may seem narcissistic and sometimes callous, but that probably is who the author really is (or was). What is surprising about this book is the humor and depth of introspection. I imagine some of this was very difficult to write. Most autobiographies tend to be self absorbent!

This autobiography of “finding one’s self” is just so hilarious and full of irony. Time after time, Elizabeth found that the answers to her problems of unhappiness lay in overcoming what she thought were obstacles and in embracing life’s crap rather than trying to divorce one’s self of the unpleasant parts.

Although many may consider this a “chick” book, I would have been proud to write it as a man. It is full of truth.

This woman needs help
Though this book was entertaining at times and makes me want to visit Italy, I found her very selfish and emotionally immature woman. It is just disheartening that in her bathroom she had God talking to her and not a woo woo guru. But did she turn to God, and ask for guidance, no! She went for the feel-good religion of the liberals and the misguided. Let’s take a look at things from a realistic perspective. She didn’t get onto anti-depressants until after destroying her marriage. What if she got counseling and anti-depressants before her divorce? I don’t think I will finish the story, but from the other reviews it looks like after running around the world she is still lost. “I am the way and the truth and the life.” John 14:6 Maybe if she turn to God instead of worldly endeavors she may have discovered something. Unfortunately, Christ isn’t cool and sheik and Eastern religions get a free ride.

Jun

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

By arpijikii Leave a Comment

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs
Tags: American Dream, Americans–will, Barack Obama, Biographies & Memoirs

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
By Barack Obama

Product Description

“A government that truly represents these Americans–that truly serves these Americans–will require a different kind of politics. That politics will need to reflect our lives as they are actually lived. It won’t be pre-packaged, ready to pull off the shelf. It will have to be constructed from the best of our traditions and will have to account for the darker aspects of our past. We will need to understand just how we got to this place, this land of warring factions and tribal hatreds. And we’ll need to remind ourselves, despite all our differences, just how much we share: common hopes, common dreams, a bond that will not break.”
–from The Audacity of Hope

In July 2004, Barack Obama electrified the Democratic National Convention with an address that spoke to Americans across the political spectrum. One phrase in particular anchored itself in listeners’ minds, a reminder that for all the discord and struggle to be found in our history as a nation, we have always been guided by a dogged optimism in the future, or what Senator Obama called “the audacity of hope.”

Now, in The Audacity of Hope, Senator Obama calls for a different brand of politics–a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the “endless clash of armies” we see in congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of “our improbable experiment in democracy.” He explores those forces–from the fear of losing to the perpetual need to raise money to the power of the media–that can stifle even the best-intentioned politician. He also writes, with surprising intimacy and self-deprecating humor, about settling in as a senator, seeking to balance the demands of public service and family life, and his own deepening religious commitment.

At the heart of this book is Senator Obama’s vision of how we can move beyond our divisions to tackle concrete problems. He examines the growing economic insecurity of American families, the racial and religious tensions within the body politic, and the transnational threats–from terrorism to pandemic–that gather beyond our shores. And he grapples with the role that faith plays in a democracy–where it is vital and where it must never intrude. Underlying his stories about family, friends, members of the Senate, even the president, is a vigorous search for connection: the foundation for a radically hopeful political consensus.

A senator and a lawyer, a professor and a father, a Christian and a skeptic, and above all a student of history and human nature, Senator Obama has written a book of transforming power. Only by returning to the principles that gave birth to our Constitution, he says, can Americans repair a political process that is broken, and restore to working order a government that has fallen dangerously out of touch with millions of ordinary Americans. Those Americans are out there, he writes–“waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.”

From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #46 in Books
Published on: 2007-11-06
Released on: 2007-11-06
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
384 pages

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Barack Obama’s first book, Dreams from My Father, was a compelling and moving memoir focusing on personal issues of race, identity, and community. With his second book The Audacity of Hope, Obama engages themes raised in his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, shares personal views on faith and values and offers a vision of the future that involves repairing a “political process that is broken” and restoring a government that has fallen out of touch with the people. We had the opportunity to ask Senator Obama a few questions about writing, reading, and politics–see his responses below. –Daphne Durham

20 Second Interview: A Few Words with Barack Obama

Q: How did writing a book that you knew would be read so closely by so many compare to writing your first book, when few people knew who you were?
A: In many ways, Dreams from My Father was harder to write. At that point, I wasn’t even sure that I could write a book. And writing the first book really was a process of self-discovery, since it touched on my family and my childhood in a much more intimate way. On the other hand, writing The Audacity of Hope paralleled the work that I do every day–trying to give shape to all the issues that we face as a country, and providing my own personal stamp on them.

Q: What is your writing process like? You have such a busy schedule, how did you find time to write?
A: I’m a night owl, so I usually wrote at night after my Senate day was over, and after my family was asleep–from 9:30 p.m. or so until 1 a.m. I would work off an outline–certain themes or stories that I wanted to tell–and get them down in longhand on a yellow pad. Then I’d edit while typing in what I’d written.

Q: If readers are to come away from The Audacity of Hope with one action item (a New Year’s Resolution for 2007, perhaps?), what should it be?
A: Get involved in an issue that you’re passionate about. It almost doesn’t matter what it is–improving the school system, developing strategies to wean ourselves off foreign oil, expanding health care for kids. We give too much of our power away, to the professional politicians, to the lobbyists, to cynicism. And our democracy suffers as a result.

Q: You’re known for being able to work with people across ideological lines. Is that possible in today’s polarized Washington?
A: It is possible. There are a lot of well-meaning people in both political parties. Unfortunately, the political culture tends to emphasize conflict, the media emphasizes conflict, and the structure of our campaigns rewards the negative. I write about these obstacles in chapter 4 of my book, “Politics.” When you focus on solving problems instead of scoring political points, and emphasize common sense over ideology, you’d be surprised what can be accomplished. It also helps if you’re willing to give other people credit–something politicians have a hard time doing sometimes.

Q: How do you make people passionate about moderate and complex ideas?
A: I think the country recognizes that the challenges we face aren’t amenable to sound-bite solutions. People are looking for serious solutions to complex problems. I don’t think we need more moderation per se–I think we should be bolder in promoting universal health care, or dealing with global warming. We just need to understand that actually solving these problems won’t be easy, and that whatever solutions we come up with will require consensus among groups with divergent interests. That means everybody has to listen, and everybody has to give a little. That’s not easy to do.

Q: What has surprised you most about the way Washington works?
A: How little serious debate and deliberation takes place on the floor of the House or the Senate.

Q: You talk about how we have a personal responsibility to educate our children. What small thing can the average parent (or person) do to help improve the educational system in America? What small thing can make a big impact?
A: Nothing has a bigger impact than reading to children early in life. Obviously we all have a personal obligation to turn off the TV and read to our own children; but beyond that, participating in a literacy program, working with parents who themselves may have difficulty reading, helping their children with their literacy skills, can make a huge difference in a child’s life.

Q: Do you ever find time to read? What kinds of books do you try to make time for? What is on your nightstand now?
A: Unfortunately, I had very little time to read while I was writing. I’m trying to make up for lost time now. My tastes are pretty eclectic. I just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, a wonderful book. The language just shimmers. I’ve started Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, which is a great study of Lincoln as a political strategist. I read just about anything by Toni Morrison, E.L. Doctorow, or Philip Roth. And I’ve got a soft spot for John le Carre.

Q: What inspires you? How do you stay motivated?
A: I’m inspired by the people I meet in my travels–hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they overcome, their fundamental optimism and decency. I’m inspired by the love people have for their children. And I’m inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man.

Customer Reviews

Good Book
I liked his candor about his hope. You can do anything you want and we have to keep hope alive!

All talk and no action
I tried and I tried and I tried to read this book. Now that he is the presumptive Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. President, I thought it was time I read something about him. This book didn’t tell me anything.He is the champion of writing super long run-on sentences. You get done reading one and you have no idea what he just said. Some sentences take up an entire paragraph! He tries to dumb down the use of big words but it is just the sentence structure that made the book totally unreadable for me. He brings up some interesting questions about our culture in general, about the two party political system, about religion, etc. but he makes no attempt at providing any answers. Now obviously this book was written before he got into any Presidential campaign, but if he was asking these questions back then, why did’nt he provide any solutions in his primary platform? One has to wonder if this guy is all talk and no action??? FOr our country’s sake, I hope not.

A cynic’s view
In “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream,” Senator Barack Obama offers a message of hope to the cynics that would claim that our country is hopelessly divided and politics has devolved into a power game of little interest to ordinary Americans. Senator Obama believes there are, in fact, ordinary Americans out there that do care about our country, are engaged in politics, and can manage to find common ground with neighbors and friends whose politics or values they may disagree with. I admit, I do not share Senator Obama’s optimism. I am one of those cynics who believes Americans are divided, politics is a game, and it is best to simply avoid people whose politics I don’t agree with. While I may not paint my face blue or red on Election Night, I do keep track of the score, and I don’t care if my side engages in cheap shots or late hits to win; I just hope they do win, even if I remain skeptical that they can actually make a difference. In his book, Senator Obama tries to convince readers like me that there is, in fact, a “new kind of politics” that we can engage in to build upon the “shared understandings that pull us together as Americans.”

While Senator Obama discusses a “new kind of politics,” the most interesting part of his book discusses politics, as it exists today, from his perch in the Senate, specifically the pervasive roles of money and the media. As a candidate for Senator, one of Obama’s major tasks was fund-raising, making cold-calls to the few Americans who can afford to write a $2,000 check to a politician. As a result, his primary interactions were limited to the top one percent of Americans, placing him “outside the world of immediate hunger, disappointment, fear, irrationality, and frequent hardship of the other 99 percent of the population,” or the people he actually entered public life to serve. In addition, Senator Obama laments his inability to directly reach his constituents. If he were to hold 39 town hall meetings a year (as he did his first year in the Senate), Senator Obama would be able to reach maybe 100,000 constituents in a six-year Senate term, whereas a three-minute story on the lowest rated news program in Chicago would reach 200,000 people, making him “entirely dependent on the media” to reach his constituents. Yet, as Senator Obama explains, instead of using its power to present politicians to the people they are supposed to serve, the media instead seems to use its power to disengage Americans from politics altogether. He presents the example of a story with the White House making debt projections. Because the media doesn’t have the time or interest to do its own research, it will typically present the opinion of a Republican analyst that the Republican projections are accurate, the countering opinion of a Democratic analyst that the projections are inaccurate, and no independent analyst to tell the true story or provide a conclusion. Instead of being about the debt projections, the story becomes about the same old tired plot of Republicans and Democrats fighting again, boring readers and prompting them to “turn to the sports page, where the story line is less predictable and the box score tells you who won.”

As Senator Obama presents it, the idea of a “new kind of politics” discourages this story line, instead focusing on narrowing differences and engaging in true dialogue and conversation with one another in order to find common ground. In an example of what is wrong with politics now, Senator Obama provides an interesting story of a breakfast meeting with President Bush, where he had noted Bush’s easy manner – that is, until Bush began his political speech, when “it felt as if somebody in a back room had flipped a speech,” and Bush’s “easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty,” as he spelled out his political agenda in an agitated, rapid tone discouraging any interruption or opposing viewpoint. In demonstrating his contrast to President Bush, Senator Obama structures his political discussions as conversations, where he always presents both sides of each issue – whether the topic be energy, race, or welfare – and inevitably concludes that each side has relevant points. In fact, Senator Obama seems to take pains to present a “Republican” point of view, virtually ignoring issues Democrats may consider important, such as education and health care, which get a total of seven pages between them, and focusing on traditionally Republican areas, such as family, values, and faith. This, Senator Obama states, is the “guidepost for his politics”: his mother’s simple principle, “How would that make you feel?” While he believes this guidepost serves him well, allowing him to gain insight into the other side’s perspective, it is a philosophy he syas everyone would benefit from, to note the suffering of others and put ourselves in their position.

Ultimately, this is the core behind Senator Obama’s philosophy – that, if we fail to help others, we diminish ourselves. In meeting with his constituents, Obama has found power in the American spirit, of people who have suffered and yet continue to work hard to fulfill their dreams. In his experiences growing up in Indonesia and traveling to his father’s native land of Kenya, Senator Obama has seen first-hand the effect of countries where individuals do not control their own fate, but must instead rely on the self-restraint of the military or on corrupt bureaucrats. As a result, he has developed a deep appreciation for the freedom we are afforded as Americans and the hope that, through hard work, we can accomplish our dreams. It is this audacity to hope, he says, that binds us together as one people, as Americans. This shared sense of community is what drives his idea of a “new kind of politics,” based on the premise that we have more similarities than differences, and that we can build on “those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans.”

However, Obama concedes that, just because he believes there can be a new kind of politics, doesn’t mean he knows how to do accomplish it, because he admits, he doesn’t. He acknowledges that his book is more of a discussion than a manifesto and that his treatment of the issues is “often partial and incomplete.” In fact, his discussion of the actual issues often seems simplistic, contradictory, and sometimes uninformed. Admittedly, I had more hope for Senator Obama as a political candidate before I read this book than I do now, just because he didn’t focus on the issues I would have liked to hear about, didn’t provide substantive arguments, or didn’t present ideas I totally agreed with. Even more than his ideas on specific issues, though, I would have liked to hear how he plans to re-engage the American people: for example, does he have ideas about how to rid government of special interests and get more Americans involved in the process through a public funding system or a national holiday on Election Day? If politics is meant to be a discussion between two empathetic parties, how does he plan to engage ordinary Americans in that discussion? In the end, though, while Obama doesn’t go as far as he could in spelling out how he will re-engage Americans in our democracy, he lays the foundation for readers to make some of these conclusions for themselves, particularly in his narrative on race. In describing the problem of poverty among African-Americans, which has become a “permanent fixture in American popular culture,” one which we as Americans take for granted, and “not for which we are culpable,” Senator Obama inadvertently points to the impact a minority president could have. If the audacity of hope means that we are all bound together as Americans, then the implication of electing a minority President is clear: we are finally allowing new voices into the political discussion. If, in fact, we as a country do elect Senator Obama as president, then maybe, just maybe, I will join him and have the audacity to hope for the future of this country again.

Jun

Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea

By arpijikii Leave a Comment

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, Chelsea Handler, PERSONAL ESSAYS

Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea
By Chelsea Handler

Product Description

THE EAGERLY AWAITED COLLECTION OF PERSONAL ESSAYS FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MY HORIZONTAL LIFEWhen Chelsea Handler needs to get a few things off her chest, she appeals to a higher power — vodka. You would too if you found out that your boyfriend was having an affair with a Peekapoo or if you had to pretend to be honeymooning with your father in order to upgrade to first class. Welcome to Chelsea’s world — a place where absurdity reigns supreme and a quick wit is the best line of defense.

In this hilarious, deliciously skewed collection, Chelsea mines her past for stories about her family, relationships, and career that are at once singular and ridiculous. Whether she’s convincing her third-grade class that she has been tapped to play Goldie Hawn’s daughter in the sequel to Private Benjamin, deciding to be more egalitarian by dating a redhead, or looking out for a foulmouthed, rum-swilling little person who looks just like her…only smaller, Chelsea has a knack for getting herself into the most outrageous situations. Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea showcases the candor and irresistible turns of phrase that have made her one of the freshest voices in comedy today.

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #29 in Books
Published on: 2008-04-22
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
272 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review
“Chelsea Handler writes like Judy Blume, if Judy Blume were into vodka, Ecstasy, and sleeping with midgets and nineteen-year-olds.”

— Jennifer Weiner, bestselling author of In Her Shoes

“Ms. Handler’s style is a friendlier, more workaday version of the haughty self-abasement practiced by Sarah Silverman, leavened by the everywoman spirit of Kathy Griffin…She seems like a cruel queen bee from an expensive college: There’s something suspiciously sophisticated about how her jokes line up that suggests the moral austerity of a comic not of [Joan] Rivers’s bad-girl school: Tina Fey.”

— New York Times

“Where have I been all of Chelsea Handler’s life? I had no idea how funny, how brilliant she is. She is too clever for words.”

— Liz Smith, New York Post

“Chelsea Handler is a terrific comedian and a hilarious writer.”

— Jay Leno

CHAPTER ONEBlacklisted

I was nine years old and walking myself to school one morning when I heard the unfamiliar sound of a prepubescent boy calling my name. I had heard my name spoken out loud by males before, but it was most often by one of my brothers, my father, or a teacher, and it was usually followed up with a shot to the side of the head.

I turned around and spotted Jason Safirstein. Jason was an adorable fifth-grader with an amazing lower body who lived down the street from me. I had never walked to school, had a conversation with, or even so much as made eye contact with Jason before. After lifting up one of my earmuffs to make sure I had heard him correctly, I nervously attempted to release my wedgie while waiting for him to catch up. (A futile effort, as it turned out, when wearing two mittens the size of car batteries.)

“I heard you were going to be in a movie with Goldie Hawn,” he said to me, out of breath.

Shit. I had worried something like this was going to happen. The day before, I had forgotten my language arts homework, and when the teacher singled me out in front of the entire class to find out where it was, I told her that I had been in three straight nights of meetings with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, negotiating my contract to play Goldie Hawn’s daughter in the sequel to Private Benjamin.

The fact that no sequel to Private Benjamin was in the works, or that a third-grader wouldn’t be negotiating her own contract with the star of the movie and her live-in lover, hadn’t dawned on me.

“Yeah, well, that was kind of a lie,” I mumbled, recovering my left mitten from in between my butt cheeks.

“What?” he asked, astounded. “You lied? Everyone has been talking about it. Everyone thinks it’s so cool.”

“Really?” I asked, quickly changing my tune, realizing the magnitude of what had happened. It occurred to me that this was the perfect opportunity to get some of the respect I believed had been denied me, due to my father dropping me off in front of the school in a 1967 banana yellow Yugo. It was 1984, and my father had no idea of or interest in how damaging his 1967 Yugo had been to my social status. He had driven me to school on a couple of really cold days, and even after I had pleaded with him to drop me off down the street, he was adamant about me not catching a cold.

“Dad,” I would tell him over and over again, “the weather has nothing to do with catching a cold. It has to do with your immune system. Please let me walk. Please!”

“Don’t be stupid,” he would tell me. “That’s child abuse.”

I wanted my father to know that child abuse was embarrassing your daughter on a regular basis with no clue at all as to the repercussions. Word had spread like wildfire throughout the school about what kind of car my father drove, and before I knew it, the older girls in fifth grade would follow me through the hallways calling me “poor” and “ugly.” After a couple of months they upped it from “ugly” to “a dog,” and would bark at me anytime they saw me in the hallway.

Our family certainly wasn’t poor, but we lived in a town where trust funds, sleepaway camps, and European vacations were abundant, along with Mercedes, Jaguars, and BMWs — a far cry from my world filled with flat tires, missing windshield wipers, and cars with perpetually lit CHECK ENGINE lights.

The idea that showing up at school in a piece of shit jalopy led to me looking like a dog didn’t make much sense in my mind. It really irked me that I had to be punished because my father thought he was a used car dealer and insisted on driving us around in the cars that he couldn’t sell. I wanted to tell my classmates that I didn’t like his cars either, and I certainly didn’t like being called a dog. I hadn’t had a low opinion of myself before then, but after being called the same nickname for six months straight, you start to look in the mirror and see resemblances between yourself and a German shepherd.

If it had been mild teasing, I think I probably could have handled it. But it was incessant, and started from the moment I got to school until the moment I left. After a while, most of my friends in the third grade would avoid being seen with me in the hallways because they didn’t want to be blacklisted too. My best friend, Jodi Sapperman, was the only one who would walk with me to every class and defend me when the fifth-grade girls would come over to our table in the cafeteria and ask if I was eating Alpo for lunch.

“Well, I shouldn’t have said ‘lie.’ That’s the wrong word,” I told Jason. “I’m having trouble getting the trailer size I want. Goldie’s being pretty cool, but Kurt is so mercurial. He doesn’t understand why a nine-year-old needs a Jacuzzi and a personal chef,” I said nonchalantly, with a wave of my mitten. “These types of things always take time.”

“You get your own trailer?” he asked.

“Yeah, you know, your own little house when you’re on set. Every actor gets one. There’s sooo much downtime in movies, you really need a place to unwind. In my opinion, it’s not nearly large enough to live in for three months, but it’s my first major role, so I’m willing to settle for a little less than the crème de la crème.”

My vast knowledge of movie-making at the age of nine came from spending every free minute watching television, movies, and reading any book about the filming of The Breakfast Club I could get my hands on. I think when you grow up in a house surrounded by cars from the previous two decades and parents who insist that ten dollars for a pair of jeans in 1984 is excessive, you have no choice but to immerse yourself in a world where money is no object.

“I didn’t even know you were an actress,” Jason said. “How did you get the part?”

“It’s ‘actor’,” I said, correcting him. “The thing is, I was in a little Off-Broadway production with Meryl Streep.” I took a long pause, allowing him to interrupt.

“Meryl Streep?” he asked. “The one from Sophie’s Choice?”

“Is there another?” I asked, rolling my eyes at his naivete. “Anyway, she and I really clicked. She recommended me to the director of this movie. That’s how Hollywood works — one thing leads to another, blah, blah, blah. But they’re having a ton of creative issues, so who knows if it will even go.”

“Go where?” he asked.

“If the movie will even be made.”

“Oh.”

I could tell Jason was disappointed and I didn’t want to lose his attention, so I hurried to keep him interested. I had always dreamed of becoming romantically involved with an older man and thought Jason not only had the makings of a wonderful lover, but also of a dedicated father to the two black twins I had planned on adopting from Ethiopia. “I mean, it will go, but it could take months. Maybe you can visit me on set.”

“Really?” he asked, his eyes ready to pop out of their sockets.

I had to think of something quick to recant my offer after realizing I would never be able to pull it off, so I quickly added, “Well, I mean if your parents will let you fly to the Galapagos Islands.”

“Who?”

“The Galapagos,” I said, trying to come up with a reason they would be shooting the sequel to Private Benjamin surrounded by turtles. “They have a ton of rare animals there, so the movie’s going to be more of her roughing it in the water with jellyfish and sea horses. It’s basically a cross between Splash and Private Benjamin.”

“I loved Splash!” Jason screamed. “This is so cool!”

“Darryl’s a complete mess,” I told him, shaking my head.

“Darryl Hannah?”

“Don’t even get me started,” I snorted.

Once we arrived at school, I played it cool and left Jason with his mouth agape, as I told him I’d talk to him later and went on my way. It felt great to get attention from him. Even if our star signs didn’t end up being sexually compatible, he was cute and popular, and it would definitely not hurt to have him as a friend. He could be the perfect ally to help get the evil fifth-grade girls to show me a little respect.

By lunch, almost every person at school had asked me about the movie. Not only did the fifth-grade girls skip their daily harassment, one of them even said “hi” as she walked by. Not one person had made fun of me or barked at me all day. Before Jodi and I could even sit down to eat lunch, kids were scrambling to come up to my table.

“What’s Goldie Hawn like?” one of the other boys in fifth grade asked me.

“Tiny,” I told him. “We’re practically the same size.”

“Really? She seems so much taller in the movies.”

“She’s like a mom to me. We totally get each other.”

Once we had a minute to ourselves, Jodi finally confronted me and said she knew for a fact I hadn’t been in a play with Meryl Streep, never mind the Off-Broadway version of Sesame Street, which by lunchtime I had cleverly renamed Sesame Streep.

“I know, Jodi, but look at it this way: This is the first day in months that I haven’t been called a dog or ugly by the fifth-graders, and I’ll be honest with you, it feels pretty sweet.”

“I know,” she said, “but what are you gonna do when they find out you’re lying?”

“They’ll forget about it,” I said, loving the attention. “I’ll just tell them it shoots over the summer, and by the time everyone gets back next year, they’ll have forgotten. Plus, all the fifth-graders will have gone to middle school by then, so they can suck it.”

“Yeah, but what about everybody else?” she asked. “Isn’t there a way you could actually get to meet Goldie Hawn and at least get a picture with her?”

“That’s a great idea,” I told her as I unbuckled my Ms. Pac-Man lunchbox to find a peanut-butter-and-cream-cheese sandwich. “What the hell is this?” I asked, unwrapping it and then slamming it down on the table. “My parents are the worst.”

Jodi and I had been friends since kindergarten, so she was used to this kind of mix-up. As sweet and loving as my mother was, she had the organizational skills of a sea lion and could never remember to make me lunch. So every morning I had to tell my father to make it for me. He, in turn, had the culinary skills of a sea lion, and no matter how many times I repeate…

Customer Reviews

Airhead Reading
This material is pure puff; nothing gets treated as serious or meaningful in all of her observations. She is funny at times, but when I finished this book (in a couple of hours) I almost felt like I had just gotten caught reading Cosmo on line at the check out stand. She has all the depth of a sophomore sorority girl.

maybe it’s just me…
Maybe it’s just me, but while I found parts of this book amusing, overall, I found it profoundly depressing. That a smart, funny, beautiful and multi talented young woman chooses to spend her life in bad jobs, one night stands, and the bottom of various bottles of alcohol does not make me laugh, it makes me sad. I did, however, very much enjoy the parts where she writes about her family. Good writer, bad material.

Laugh outloud funny!
Chelsea Handler is one of the funniest women in Hollywood. And these two books of hers prove just how hilarious she is. I laughed outloud while reading these at home by myself. I laughed outloud on the airplane I was reading them on, people may have looked however I was so enthralled with the story I didn’t notice nor did I care! I have since lent out both books to every friend that has seen me reading these and they agree, Chelsea Handler may be the funniest woman we “know”.

Jun

Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time

By arpijikii Leave a Comment

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, Greg Mortenson, homeless mountaineer, humanitarian spirit

Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
By Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin

Product Description

The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Talibans backyard

Anyone who despairs of the individuals power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistans treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schoolsespecially for girlsthat offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortensons quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #14 in Books
Published on: 2007-01-30
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
368 pages

Customer Reviews

New Perspectives
Excellent!! This book and this man – Greg Mortenson – can give you a new perspective on life in other lands, particularly muslim countries. After reading, you will want to donate to the Central Asia Institute. Very humbling!

One person can make a difference
If you ever said “I am only one person. What difference can L make?” Then you need to read this book. This book will help you see how much just one person can do with very little means. If this book doesn’t inspire you to make a contribution even in a small way I don’t know what will. Even if you are not financially able to help there are many organization that could use any time you could devote to their cause. I urge everyone to volunteer their time to a cause in which they believe. The rewards are more then you could ever imagine.

Highly recommended
I enjoyed reading this book that educated me about a very different part of the world where good people live a very hard life. Mortenson is a great human being for doing what he does. CAI is going to be my number one charity to donate money to from now on. Thank you, Greg!

Jun

Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons

By arpijikii Leave a Comment

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, memoir, Tim Russert

Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons
By Tim Russert

Product Description

What does it really mean to be a good father? What did your father tell you, that has stayed with you throughout your life? Was there a lesson from him, a story, or a moment that helped to make you who you are? Is there a special memory that makes you smile when you least expect it?

After the publication of Tim Russert’s number one New York Times bestseller about his father, Big Russ & Me, he received an avalanche of letters from daughters and sons who wanted to tell him about their own fathers, most of whom were not superdads or heroes but ordinary men who were remembered and cherished for some of their best moments–of advice, tenderness, strength, honor, discipline, and occasional eccentricity.

Most of these daughters and sons were eager to express the gratitude they had carried with them through the years. Others wanted to share lessons and memories and, most important, pass them down to their own children.

This book is for all fathers, young or old, who can learn from the men in these pages how to get it right, and to understand that sometimes it is the little gestures that can make the big difference for your child. For some in this book, the appreciation came later than they would have liked. But as Wisdom of Our Fathers reminds us, it is never too late to embrace it.

From the father who coached his daughter in sports (and life), attending every meet, game, performance, and tournament, to the daughter who, after a fifteen-year estrangement, learned to make peace with her difficult father just before he died, to the son who came, at last, to appreciate the silent way his father could show affection, Wisdom of Our Fathers shares rewarding lessons, immeasurable gifts, and lasting values.

Heartfelt, humorous, engaging, irresistibly readable, and bound to bring back memories of unforgettable moments with our own fathers, Tim Russert’s new book is not only a fitting companion to his own marvelous memoir, but also a celebration of the positive qualities passed down from generation to generation.

From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #11 in Books
Published on: 2007-05-15
Released on: 2007-05-15
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
320 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Tim Russert is the moderator and managing editor of Meet the Press, and the Washington bureau chief of NBC News. He is married to Maureen Orth, and they have one son, Luke.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

A Must Read!
Everyone should read this book. I had to have kleenex’s by my side all the way through the book. How touching. Excellent book, thank you Tim, we miss you.
jahs

Buffalo Wings
The coasts have had too much influence on America for the last 50 years, beginning with Rock & Roll, I suppose, and the cult of youth. There is much to be said for the heartland beginning with the unglamorous mid-west and the great rust-belt cities of Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and the crown jewel, Chicago. Russert was all about being from Buffalo, a town joked about by those seeking sophistication and importance. I am a late-comer to the Russert admiration society, but I am now a true-believer. I knew him not, but I did spend some time watching his shows this election season and came to admire him enormously. This book is not all that great, but that isn’t very important. It is a book in which the transitory words of Television are turned into immortality. This and his other books are our single hold on him. He deserved to be admired and was. That in itself is rare.

His place in history will never be silenced
Although I no longer will hear Mr. Russert every Sunday morning the wisdom of his words and the example of how he lead his life will always be with me.

This book reflects the insight we all will have experiencing life and our aging parents. It will open our eyes as to the generation they are and the generation we have become.

I hope in some small way I can lead by Tim’s example. He sure left one heck of a legacy in history and in his son Luke!

Pattie

April 2024
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Blog Stats

1,400 hits

Top Clicks

None

Posts Tagged ‘Biographies & Memoirs

Product Description

Product Details

Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Product Description

Product Details

Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands By Chelsea Handler

Product Description

Product Details

Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Product Description

Product Details

Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Product Description

Product Details

Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia By Elizabeth Gilbert

Product Description

Product Details

Customer Reviews

Product Description

Product Details

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Product Details

Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Product Description

Product Details

Customer Reviews

Product Description

Product Details

Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Pages

Meta

Archives

Recent Posts

Categories

Recent Comments

Blog Stats

Top Clicks

Top Posts

My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands
By Chelsea Handler

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
By Elizabeth Gilbert