| Archive - September 2007 BEARS VS KCPosted Sep-16-07 08:59:51 PDT Are you kiddn' me. Bears. Bears by a bunch! GO BEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Book Review: The EntitledPosted Sep-15-07 08:18:00 PDT
The Entitled
The Entertainment Critic Book Review By James Myers THE ENTITLED By Frank Deford Published by Sourcebooks, Inc., 352 Pages ISBN: 978-1-40220-896-6 $24.95; fiction (Four Star Rating)****
Mr. Deford is a six-time winner of the National Sportswriter of the Year NPR Commentator Morning Edition Senior Contributing Editor at Sports Illustrated Correspondent on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel Author of over one dozen books Member of the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters Winner of both an Emmy and a Peabody Sporting News describes Deford as “the most influential sports voice among members of the print media” GQ calls him “the world’s greatest sportswriter”
“I know one thing, Alcazar thought, as he got into his Porsche, if he starts in on how the team has got to be like a family, I’m outta Cleveland next year when I’m a free agent. Nobody says an insurance office is supposed to be like a family, or the local Burger King. Just do your job. Show up ready to play. It’s always the fringe players, the guys who make all the noise with their mouths instead of their bats, who play up the family crap. And those guys end up managing. They get the last word. They get to push the buttons of the next generation of the guys who can do things they never could themselves.”
Howie Traveler is a fifty-plus minor league coach, who had a shot a being a major league player. In truth, he wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t good enough at a lot of things. He never quite succeeded as a coach, a player, a husband or a father. He’s finally given his shot to manage a big league team, the Cleveland Indians. But he has one major league problem: He cannot get through to his star player, Jay Alcazar. Alcazar is his slugger, a homerun hitter, who is perhaps the best in baseball. He’s not only a star on the field, but off the field as well. Handsome, Latin, and charismatic, he has an ego and an arrogance that matches his skill with the ladies. Howie has reached the end of a long line in both his career and his life. He is on the verge of being fired after costing his team a shot at the World Series. Baseball is the only life Howie has ever known and there appears to be no way out. Howie is old school; nothing satisfies him more than watching the players who have the talent he never did play the game, and watching the game itself being played well. Howie has a love for the game normally reserved for children. Jay Alcazar (“El Jefe”) is new school; the old-time players who think the word team does not have the letter “ I “ in it just do not appreciate the pressures of the modern game, where so much depends on the your performance in the batter’s box, where you are truly alone.
The night that Howie realizes he’s getting fired, as he is walking down the hallway to his room, he sees Alcazar’s door is open and a woman running out of it. Jay grabs her and hauls her back into the room, kicking the door shut. Howie listens for a moment and hears nothing. He goes to his room. The next morning his MVP is accused of rape and Jay Alcazar is insisting he’s innocent, and that he has been setup. Howie must choose between his dream job or doing what he knows is right. It is this tension, this test of character that makes this book the single most revealing sports book of this year. If Howie tells the truth, he could loose his job, his player, and maybe his chance to work in baseball ever again. Something he has sacrificed the rest of his entire life to do.
The novel goes back and forth into Howie’s and Jay’s past and present that all lead up to the moment of moral decision. Mr. Deford has given us insight into the modern day baseball and its players, as well as what has been lost and why it has been lost from the modern game. The tension is this book is delicious. His character development of Howie Traveler may be the most insightful look into an old school player that I’ve ever read. Jay’s character gives us an inward glimpse at a Latin-American ballplayer’s struggle to make it, and offers an explanation for the modern player’s perceived arrogance. The character development of the other ballplayers and sportswriters in this book are its strength. Honest and authentic, the ending does not matter. Our old time baseball naiveté meeting the modern game is what the book is about. The writing is as genuine as only the best sports books are. This one is a keeper from a master. For baseball fans and fiction readers alike, The Entitled belongs on your bookshelf.
You Can Purchase This Book At My Bookstore www.morebeautifulwomanmagazine.com www.theentertainmentcritic.com
Book Review: MiddlesexPosted Sep-05-07 02:37:47 PDT Middlesex
The Entertainment Critic Book Review, By James Myers MIDDLESEX By Jeffrey Eugenides Published by Picador Books An Imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux 529 Pages ISBN 978-0-312-42773-3 2003 WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION OPRAH’S BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB SELECTION, 2007 SUMMER SELECTION NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER Five Star Rating: *****
“I had never seen such a big dictionary before. The Webster’s at the New York Public Library stood in the same relation to other dictionaries of my acquaintance as the Empire State Building did to other buildings. It was an ancient, medieval-looking thing, bound in brown leather that brought to mind a falconer’s gauntlet. The pages were gilded like the Bible’s…Following where the trial led, I finally reached
Hermaphrodite -1. One having the sex organs and many of the secondary sex characteristics of both male and female. 2. Anything comprised of diverse or contradictory elements. See synonyms at MONSTER.”
The latest novel by Jeffrey Eugenides is a coming of age story that traces a defective gene in an unforgettable family saga. The story is narrated to us by the protagonist herself. Born Calliope Helen Stephanides, her physician fails to recognize that Cal is not all that she appears to be, but rather she has 5-apha-reductase deficiency. Chromosomally, Callie is a male (she has both an X and a Y), she has no real penis, but instead a kind of extended clitoris and testes, but they remain undescended. The story of her Greek family is the most interesting and provocative tale I have read in sometime. This story is a very rough parallel to the Greek fable of Hermes and Aphrodite.
The novel begins in the small Greek village of Cal’s grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona. The two fall in love. The problem is that they are brother and sister, and intermarriage is forbidden by the church. They are forced to flee when the Turks invade Greece in 1922. On the passage to America, no one knows them. There are free to marry without risking social rejection. They marry while still on the ship. They come to American and meet their cousin Sourmelina and her husband in Detroit, Michigan. Lefty and Desdemona have a son, Milton. He later marries Lina’s daughter, Tessie. This again complicates things because we now have second cousins who intermarry. Tessie and Milton have two children “Chapter Eleven” (a reference to the fact that he eventually bankrupts the family business, Hercules Hot Dogs), who is a normal boy and Calliope, who is intersexed. This goes undetected for 14 years of Callie’s life, because his parents take him a doctor, Dr. Philobosian, who is from the old country, and is so elderly himself that his vision is impaired. Callie is therefore raised as a girl. But Callie has what she refers to as "the crocus";
The turning point in the novel comes when Callie reaches fourteen. She falls in love with her best female friend (referred to in the book as “The Obscure Object”), and has her fist sexual experience with both sexes. After an accident that leads to a physical exam for Callie, her doctor finally discovers the truth. Her parents take her to a trendy physician in New York, who puts Callie through a series of test, exams and photographs. He has plans to take his unique find national. Faced with the prospect of sex reassignment surgery, Callie becomes Cal and runs away to San Francisco, where he becomes an attraction in a sex show. The club is raided where Cal works, and when it is discovered that he is underage, he is returned to his brother, who takes him back to Detroit. Once back home, as Cal is caring for his grandmother, the now elderly and sickly Desdemona, tells him the truth, that Lefty was really her brother.
This book is remarkable, not just for its plot, but the breadth and depth of it characters. Narrated by Cal, Eugenides gives us remarkable insight into the minds and actions of all the characters involved. We are permitted to read their thoughts, giving us an understanding of their actions that is unparalleled in other works of modern fiction. Eugenides treats his Greeks with a loving, open, sometimes comical, sometimes tragic insight that is a revelation of the human condition. His delicate, humorous treatments of his subjects are the real reason to read this book. Character development is critical to the great success of this eye-opening book. The elaborate explanation of how Callie got her defective gene cleverly masks this light-heated exploration of the Greek-American Culture, and the human condition. The prose in this book is both beautiful and lyrical.
The book handles the sexuality involved in a stylish and persuasive manner. The reader gets a real feeling what it must have been like for Cal, both in the process of growing up and in his journey of self-awareness. Cal does not seem like a monster to us, he is a funny, insightful human being. The true genius of this book is that it makes our protagonist human, likeable, and understood by the reader. What very easily could have been repelling, has become attractive. This is a must-read treatise, written by a master story teller. This epic, wondrous, and transcendent book will be remembered as one of the great American novels of its time. It has my highest recommendation.
You Can Purchase This Book At My Bookstore www.theentertainmentcritic.com
Book Review: Eat, Pray, LovePosted Sep-05-07 02:37:04 PDT The Entertainment Critic Book Review, By James Myers EAT, PRAY, LOVE ONE WOMAN’S SEARCH FOR EVERYTHING ACROSS ITALY, INDIA AND INDONESIA By Elizabeth Gilbert Published by Penguin Books 352 Pages ISBN 978-0-14-303841-2(pbk) A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER #1 ON THE NYT PAPERBACK NONFICTION LIST 5/13/2007 A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK AMERICAN BOOKSELLERS ASSOCIATION ACCLAIMED BEST SELLER #1 ON THE BOOKSENSE PAPERBACK NONFICTION LIST 5/13/2007 ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY’S TOP 10 NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR THE MOVIE RIGHT TO THIS BOOK HAVE BEEN SOLD TO PARAMOUNT WITH JULIA ROBERTS ATTACHED Four Star Rating****
“I seriously believed that David was my soul mate.”
“He probably was. Your problem is that you don’t understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change you like. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you will ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. Your problem is, you just can’t let this one go. It’s over, Groceries. David’s purpose was to shake you up, drive you out of that marriage that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so a new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. …Listen, you’re a powerful woman and you’re used to getting what you want out of life, and you didn’t get what you wanted in your last few relationships, and it’s got you all jammed up. Your husband didn’t behave the way you wanted him to and David didn’t either. Life did not go your way for once. And nothing pisses off a control freak more than life not goin’ her way.”
In her 30’s, Elizabeth Gilbert, seemed to have everything the modern American woman is supposed to possess. She had a good husband, beautiful home, a successful career as a writer, and public recognition. She was supposed to be happy. But instead, she was consumed by pain, doubt, and confusion. Without warning her life began to change. Her husband divorced her. Her new boyfriend left her. Her fortune and homes were largely consumed in a very messy, prolonged divorce. Elizabeth chose to travel to Italy, India and Bali, not only in a search for culture, but also a journey of self-discovery. She recounts her journey in three parts, each told in 36 segments to match the pattern of her 108 beads on her japa mala, a traditional Indian prayer necklace.
Following her divorce and overwhelming depression, she examines three different aspects of her nature, in three different cultures: pleasure in Italy (eating enough to gain, “the happiest 23 pounds of her life”, learning Italian and practicing bel far niente, “the beauty of doing nothing”), devotion in India (here she spend 4 months in an ashram engaged in a rigorous practice of meditation, yoga, and manual labor), and a balance of both in Bali(here she meets an elderly medicine man, a female healer, and unexpectedly falls in love). "I wanted to explore one aspect of myself set against the backdrop of each country, in a place that has traditionally done that one thing very well.”
Against this backdrop of travel and self-discovery is her own internal depression and loneliness. The journey that this book takes us on is her self-discovery of her own internal strength and resilience. Elizabeth is clearly a survivor in the most constructive use of the term. Her journey of self-discovery and her dry, witty account of her enlightenment is illuminating. She has a very conversational way of writing, and the dialogue is both interesting and humorous. You cannot help but like her. Her personality and charm make themselves apparent all through this book. Her quest to find joy and peace combined with her wit and charm make this a great read on the beach this summer. Nonetheless, there is much meat to her writing. The book is as inspirational as it is entertaining. Elizabeth teaches us that we can claim the responsibility for our own contentment. Her writing is both entertaining and engrossing. I highly recommend this intelligent, witty, articulate and moving book.
Reprinted by arrangement with Penguin Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from EAT, PRAY, LOVE by Elizabeth Gilbert. Copyright © Elizabeth Gilbert, 2007 You Can Purchase This Book at My Bookstore www.morebeautifulwomanmagazine.com www.theentertainmentcritic.com
Book Review: Water for ElephantsPosted Sep-05-07 02:36:15 PDT The Entertainment Critic Book Review, By James Myers WATER FOR ELEPHANTS By Sara Gruen Published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill A Division of Workman Publishing 350 Pages ISBN # 978-1-56512-499-8 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LOS ANGLES TIMES BESTSELLER WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST SELLER A NEWSDAY FAVORITE BOOK OF 2006 USA TODAY BESTSELLER AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION ALEX AWARD WINNER ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY NOMINEE FOR BEST NOVEL BOOKSENSE # 1 PICK FOR JUNE, 2006 WINNER OF THE 2007 BOOKBROWSE AWARD FOR MOST POPULAR BOOK Four Star Rating****
“I stare at Edmund Hyde, in his expensive suit, behind his expensive desk, in front of his leather-bound books. Behind him the sun streaks through lead-paned windows. I am filled with sudden loathing-I’ll bet he has never taken payment in the form of beans and eggs in his life. I lean forward and make eye contact. I want this to be his problem, too. “What am I supposed to do?” I ask slowly.
“I don’t know son, I wish I did. The country’s fallen on hard times, and that’s a fact.” He leans back in his chair, his fingers still steepled. He cocks his head, as an idea has occurred to him. “I suppose you could go west,” he muses.
I’ve read close to 100 books so far this year, and I have written reviews for many of those books. The publishers, when the send review copies to a reviewer, also send promotional material. I’m rarely surprised by the content that I read. Every once in a great while, something comes in from left field that you read, and re-read, and re-read again. Such a book that keeps you awake at night, in deep thought. It’s new, fresh and so original, that you have read nothing like it before, and probably will not again. Sara Gruen’s new novel, now in affordable paperback, Water for Elephants, came as a complete and total surprise. I love this book!
This historical romance novel is set in the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Jacob Jankowski, 23 years old, is a veterinary student at Cornell University, just days from finishing his studies. His life seems neat and orderly, and worse yet, ordinary. His future has been laid out for him. He will return to his sleepy hometown and practice veterinary medicine with his father in a joint practice. Unexpectedly, his parents are both killed in an automobile accident. He return to his home to find everything is amiss. His parent’s lawyer tells him that his folks were broke and they had taken a mortgage out on their home, which has failed. All is lost. Told from Jacob’s prospective as a older man, (93 or 96, he can’t remember) who is now in a nursing home, the memories of his actions are triggered when a new resident(another lawyer, and god how Jacob hates lawyers) in his nursing home claims to have watered elephants in his youth, a statement Jacob takes very strong exception to.
Jacob recalls that he was in the middle of taking his final, final exams and just walked out of the classroom. He then jumps a train, which happens to be a circus train. Once the owner of the circus, Uncle Al, learns he has experience as a vet, he hires him to take care of the circus animals. The book traces Jacob’s experiences in the circus, as he gives us a bird’s eye view of the brutality of circus life (unwanted worker can be redlighted, or thrown off the train while it is still moving), the circus workers and performers, while he struggles to maintain his own sense of right and wrong. Jacob also falls in love with the star performer, Marlena. Marlena is married to August, the animal trainer who abuses both his animals and the people around him. Utterly charming at times, and brutally vicious at other times, his character moves the plot line in this book. Jacob develops a guarded relationship with August and Marlena, but as he falls more and more for her, August becomes more and more suspicious, and beats Marlena and Jacob. Marlena leaves Jacob, foretelling the demise of the Benzini Brothers circus.
As the story end, several of the circus workers who were redlighted to avoid paying them, came back and cause a stamped of the circus animals. August is killed, the circus is shut down. Marlena and Jacob leave with several animals, including a large elephant to begin their lives together.
The character development in this book makes the book extra special and is worth noting here. Walter, the dwarf is Jacob’s roommate, Camel, a worker who is a drunk, that is instrumental in getting Jacob in the circus. When he is sick with jaked liquor disease, Walter and Jacob take care of him. Rosie, the elephant, who is felt to be useless until Jacob discoveries that Rosie only speaks Polish. Wonderful character development makes this novel a joy to read. The contrast theme of immoral circus life during the great depression and the test of Jacob’s own moral center as well as the love triangle, make this book interesting and exciting.
Old fashioned, and enduring, this one receives my highest rating. The midgets, rubes and freaks who populate this book demonstrate that it was well-researched. Beautifully written, like all good surprises, this one left me wanting more. A great secret revealed, this is one of the year’s very best.
You Can Purchase This Book at My Bookstore www.morebeautifulwomanmagazine.com www.theentertainmentcritic.com
Book Review: The AlchemistPosted Sep-05-07 02:35:33 PDT
The Alchemist
The Entertainment Critic Book Review, By James Myers THE ALCHEMIST By Paulo Coelho Published by Harper Collins Publishers 197 Pages ISBN 0-06-112241-6 THIS BOOK HAS SOLD MORE THAN 2 MILLION COPIES HAS BEEN TRANSLATED INTO FIFTY-SIX LANGUAGES AN INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER Five Star Rating *****
“…we all need to be aware of our personal calling. What is a personal calling? It is God’s blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend… To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation.”
If you have ever read The Little Prince or The Prophet, then this simple, thin, easy to read, compelling story is for you. Dreams, signs, symbolism, medieval mysticism and the desert all play key roles in this tale. In this symbolic masterpiece, Mr. Coelho has established himself as a master fable teller of the first order. We learn that we should follow our dreams and to embrace our destinies. Finding our personal calling, our “Personal Myth” is the reason why we are here, our reason to be. Our mission is to follow our personal calling, to find God, and to achieve the happiness, fulfillment, and the ultimate purpose of all of creation. Now in paperback, this classic has become a top seller again and is available everywhere. First published in Brazil in 1988, The Alchemist has been translated into 56 languages, sold more than 40 million copies, and has been read in over 150 countries. It is one of the best selling books in history.
This is a fable about a shepherd boy, Santiago. He has grown up with poor parents, who struggle to send him to seminary. Santiago has a strong desire to travel the world, so his father allows him to use his inheritance to buy a flock of sheep. He has a recurring dream about treasure under the pyramids in Egypt. A gypsy woman and a mysterious king advise him to pursue his destiny. “When you want something, all of the universe conspires to helping you achieve it.” He listens to the signs, and courageously follows them in a journey of space, time and self-discovery. Santiago sells his sheep and travels to Tangiers in Africa. After a thief steals all of his money, he works for a crystal merchant. He crosses the desert with an Englishman. At a desert oasis he meets and falls in love with Fatima, who encourages him to reach his goals. He earns more money by correctly reading the signs and predicting an attack on the oasis. On the last leg of the journey, he meets the Alchemist, who completes his training in reading the signs of the desert. At the end of the journey he learns that the “treasure lies where your heart belongs” and that the treasure was the journey itself, the discoveries he made, and the wisdom he acquired. Coelho is the ultimate optimist; all things are possible as long as you really want it to happen. We are not pawns of fate. We do not loose our ability to control our lives. On the contrary, if we follow our personal journey, we cannot go wrong; if we do not have the courage to follow it; our life is doomed to emptiness, misery and unfulfillment.
The Alchemist has a universal appeal. We can all identify with Santiago, we all have dreams and we all want them to come true. Coelho’s writing style is short, and pointed, much like Hemingway’s. The combination of wisdom, philosophy, the simplicity of language and symbolism, makes the book lyrically readable. This book just bursts with optimism. We learn to trust our hearts, read the world for signs of God, to make the most of coincidence and luck and to accept the subtle ways love transforms and improves us. Like the magic of Alchemy, this boy’s tales transforms us. This is a great book. I give it my highest recommendation.
You Can Purchase This Book At My Bookstore www.morebeautifulwomanmagazine.com www.theentertainmentcritic.com
Book Review: The Diana ChroniclesPosted Sep-05-07 02:34:39 PDT
The Diana Chronicles
The Entertainment Critic Book Review, By James Myers THE DIANA CHRONICLES-By Tina Brown Published by Doubleday An Imprint of the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group A Division of Random House 486 Pages ISBN# 978-0-385-51708-9 Four Star Rating****
“Steve Kroft of CBS’s 60 Minutes says that in his pre-interview research for a 2005 segment on Prince Charles, he found that every American woman he spoke to unfailingly raised the response Price Charles made to the question “Are you in love?” on the day of his engagement to Diana as a reason why they had negative feelings about him.”
The famous exchange on February 24, 1981, began, “I am positively delighted and frankly amazed that Diana is prepared to take me on.” When pressed by the BBC interviewer, “And in love?” Diana answered immediately, “Of course,” with a girlish giggle. Then Charles said it: “Whatever ‘in love’ means.”
Tina Brown, former editor-in-chief of the Tatler-England’s most famous gossip magazine, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker has written a fresh and interesting biography of Diana Spencer/Princess Diana. This is an authoritative, engrossing, and revealing factual and psychological study of the events in Diana’s life that shaped her, and the women around her. We are given unprecedented access of the nice country girl who becomes the popular and famous woman on the planet. We are provided with colorful and rich details of Diana’s character from many insiders, giving the reader a detailed portrait of this remarkable woman. Brown’s comprehensive information and detailed research make this book rich with previously unknown information, which traces her barely marked birth, housekeeping/nanny positions, to her marriage and finally her rise to the world stage. Brown’s detailing of emotional intelligence and ability to connect with people is particularly striking. Diana’s ability to recognize and create memorable moments, and her ability to inspire the common man, gives us a case study of a Cinderella that became a humanitarian, ambassador and global celebrity. Diana is portrayed as intuitive, intense, compassionate, and yet flawed as she was unable to keep the man that she loved.
Brown is an excellent writer, with lots of amusing stories and anecdotes that make this book interesting. Her study of the psychological underpinnings of not only Diana, but many of the other figures in her life, make this a must read. Engrossing and revealing, this is good dish for the summer. I recommend this book.
You Can Purchase This Book At My Bookstore www.morebeautifulwomanmagazine.com www.theentertainmentcritic.com
Book Review: 90 Minutes in HeavenPosted Sep-05-07 02:33:52 PDT
90 Minutes in Heaven
The Entertainment Critic Book Review By James Myers 90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN-By Don Piper with Cecil Murphey Published by Fleming H. Revell A Division of Baker Publishing 205 Pages ISBN-10 # 0-8007-5949-4 (pbk) (Four Star Rating)****
“When I died, I didn't flow through a long, dark tunnel. I had no sense of fading away or coming back. I never felt my body being transported into the light. I heard no voices calling to me or anything else. A light enveloped me, with brilliance beyond earthly comprehension.”
Joy pulsed through me as I looked around, and at that moment I became aware of a large crowd of people. They stood in front of a brilliant orange gate. I had no idea how far away they were; such things as distance didn’t matter. As the crowd rushed towards me, I didn’t see Jesus, but I did see people I had known. As they surged toward me, I knew instantly that all of them had died during my lifetime. Their presence seemed absolutely natural.”
On January 18, 1989, Don Piper, a Baptist minister, was driving his Ford Escort on a rickety bridge in Texas. An inmate on work release driving a truck coming in the other direction, crossed the line, and at a high rate of speed smashed the Escort, apparently killing the driver instantly. For the next 90 minutes, Don Piper appeared to all observers to be dead. What Don describes in this book is his miraculous journey to heaven and back to earth. His descriptions of his observations in Heaven are realistic and vivid. This is done in eye-opening detail. What is more inspirational is not only Don’s recovery, but also his continued ministry and his ability to help and inspire other people that have suffered similar injuries and loss in their lives. He endured 34 surgeries, and a grueling recovery period. This book has the tremendous aspect of self-discovery. Constantly, Piper seems to question, why did this happen to me? Where is the good that comes from this? We learn with Don that his purpose to advise and help others who have experienced similar tragedies and to bring peace and hope to those that have none. You cannot help but identify with the questions of why am I here? Why has my life taken this path? What is the purpose, if any, of my progression? There is much food for thought here. With the experience of our own pain, there is a natural connection with the pain and indecision of others. Don has found a way to take his experience and make a positive contribution. We celebrate his triumphs with him in this inspiring book. This true story of overcoming life limitations and making our path in life work for the public good is the best part of this book.
This book has gone through 31 printings and is still one of the best selling paperbacks in the World. There is great hope and inspiration here for all of us, but particularly those people that are recovering from serious injuries and the loss of a loved one. An interesting read, I recommend the book.
You Can Purchase This Book At My Bookstore www.morebeautifulwomanmagazine.com www.theentertainmentcritic.com
Book Review: A Long Way GonePosted Sep-05-07 02:32:58 PDT
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soldier
The Entertainment Critic Book Review By James Myers A LONG WAY GONE: MEMOIRS OF A BOY SOLDIER-By Ishmael Beah Published by Sarah Crichton Books An Imprint of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 229 Pages ISBN 13: 978-0-374-10523-5 (Four Star Rating)****
“My new friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them the full story of my life. “Why did you leave Sierra Leone?” “Because there is a war.” “You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?” “Yes, all the time.” “Cool.” I smile a little. “You should tell us about it sometime.” “Yes, sometime.”.”
A Long Way Gone is the Memoir of a former boy soldier. Told to us as an adult, Ishmael Beth, from Sierra Leone, Africa, now 26, was a rebel soldier who was separated from his family at the age of 12 and conscripted into the government army at the age of 13. Beth tells us that he and a friend left home to attend a talent show in a village 16 miles away, on the way the rebels attacked their village of Mogbwemo, their school had been cancelled, and they were to become exiles on the run. At 13 the Rebels finally catch up with Ishmael and enlist him into the army. The Rebel forces used children because they were loyal, fearless, and easily manipulated. They also came in an endless supply to wreck havoc. Today there are an estimated 300,000 child soldiers world-wide. He is given an AK-47, supplies with marihuana, pills and “brown brown” (a combination of cocaine and gunpowder thought to make the boys do anything that was asked of them). At night they watch Rambo, by day they kill literally thousands of people. The boys suffer from a variety of ailments, wounds, burns and nightmares.
One of the Rebel officers takes a shine to Ishmael. Out of the blue, when he is 15, Ishmael is selected to leave the compound with a UNICEF truck and is told that his services are no longer required. Placed in a child dorm in Freeland, the capital of Sierra Leone, the boys disarm the MP’s that are guarding them and killed each other. After this first battle, the book contains graphic descriptions of the boys suffering from drug withdrawal. The war is closing in on the capital, when miraculously; Ishmael is chosen to go to the United Nations to speak about children involved in war in Africa. He speaks, he makes friends, but he returns. A second miracle occurs when he finally comes to the United States for good. As he tells this tale, he is a 26 year old college graduate.
This is a deeply disturbing book, but an important one. Ishmael’s ability to over his brutal past is a central part of this story. This is a very direct first person account of ferocious fighting and blood-drenched villages. The book is a classic example of one overcoming man’s inhumanity to other men. This is a vivid memoir told through the eyes of a child. Beah’s inspiring pursuit of his own humanity is worth a long look. It is a haunting memoir, unflinchingly told. It is a gripping tale. I recommend this book.
You Can Purchase This Book At My Bookstore www.morebeautifulwomanmagazine.com www.theentertainmentcritic.com
Book Review: BlinkPosted Sep-05-07 02:32:16 PDT
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
The Entertainment Critic Book Review By James Myers BLINK: THE POWER OF THINKING WITHOUT THINKING-By Malcolm Gladwell Published by Back Bay Books, Little, Brown and Company, and Hachette Book Group USA 296 Pages ISBN: 978-0-316-01066-5(Pb) (Four Star Rating)****
“I think we are innately suspicious of … rapid cognition. We live in a world that assumes that the quality of a decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it. When doctors are faced with a difficult diagnosis, they order more tests, and when we are uncertain about what we hear, we ask for a second opinion. And what do we tell our children? Haste makes waste. Look before you leap. Stop and think. Don’t judge a book by its cover. We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible and spending as much time as possible in deliberation. We really only trust conscious decision making. But there are moments, particularly in times of stress, when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions can offer a much better means of making sense of the world. The first task of Blink is to convince you of a simple fact; decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately.”
Blink is a brilliant, new and insightful book written by Malcolm Gladwell, staff writer for the New Yorker, former business and science reporter at the Washington Post, and author of another #1 best seller, The Tipping Point. The premise of Blink is that rapid cognition thought that occurs in the blink of any eye, are powerful and important conclusions that we come to, that should not be ignored, but embraced. In other words, under some circumstances we can trust our snap judgments, better than we can trust more deliberate, conscious, balanced thought. Mr. Gladwell teaches us that sometimes when we are under stress and pressure, our snap judgments serve us better that more conscious, analyzed thought. Human beings have what Gladwell refers to as “the power of thin slicing” which means that human beings have the ability to make sense of situations based upon the thinnest slice of experience.
Blink is also a study of when our instincts betray us and why. For example the Getty museum purchased a statute that was supposedly constructed in ancient Greece. They studied it for 14 months with scientific tests and complicated chemical analysis and came to the conclusion that it was authentic. A few experts that constantly evaluated objects of antiquity glanced at it and based on their experience without performing tests, felt that it was fake. Getty purchased the statute for $10 Million Dollars. After many years and much study, Getty finally came to the conclusion that the experts, who just glanced at the statute and sensed that something was off, were right. The statute was a phony. The scientists with their machines were wrong, the art experts with their hunches and experience were right. Gladwell teaches us that our unconscious may be a powerful force, but it is not infallible. Certain variables can cause our rapid cognition to go awry, and what we need to do is identify those and understand them. We can learn when to listen to our snap judgments and when we should not.
Gladwell demonstrates in the book that our snap judgments and first impressions can be educated and controlled. We can actually teach ourselves to make better snap judgments. By managing and educating our unconscious reactions, we can make better and more insightful judgments. The power of knowing in a second or two is an ability we can teach ourselves. Blink then is concerned with the very smallest component of our everyday lives-the content and origin of our first impressions, and when we should take them seriously. Examples are when we first meet someone, the way wars are fought, the kinds of products we purchase, the movies that we see, the way police officers are trained, the way couples are counseled. By putting those changes together we end up with a different and better world.
Gladwell did not write this book like a scientist or a geek. It is written in plain English, and is conversational in nature. It is easy to read and understand. He uses concrete stories and examples to accent his points, all of which are interesting and amusing. Mr. Gladwell’s sense of humor and charisma make this book a fascination. The book is impossible put down. This is a great read, and one you will want to make sure you don’t pass up. Trust my snap judgment and first impression of this book. It’s a great one, one of the best in paperback.
You Can Purchase This Book At My Bookstore www.morebeautifulwomanmagazine.com www.theentertainmentcritic.com
Book Review: Love Walked InPosted Sep-05-07 02:31:24 PDT Love Walked In
The Entertainment Critic Book Review By James Myers LOVE WALKED IN- By Marisa de los Santos Published by Plume Trade Paperbacks An Imprint of Penguin Books USA 320 Pages ISBN 0-452-28789-8 (Four Star Rating)****
“My life-my real life-started when a man walked into it, a handsome stranger in a perfectly cut suit, and yes, I know how that sounds. My friend Linny would snort and convey the kind of multi-prolonged disgust I rely on her to convey. One prong of feminist disgust at the whole idea of a man changing a woman’s life, even though as things turned out, the man himself was more a harbinger of change than change itself. Another prong of disgust for the inaccuracy of saying my life began after thirty-one years of living it. And the final prong being a kind of general disgust for the way people turn moments in their lives into movie moments.”
Love Walked in was Marisa de los Santos’s first novel. Let’s hope she writes many, many more. When Martin Grace enters the Philadelphia coffee shop Cornelia Brown manages, her life is changed forever. Like in The Philadelphia Story there is a twist to this encounter. Martin is every bit as handsome, and dashing as Cary Grant, and he sweeps Cornelia off of her feet, but the key relationship in the book is not between Martin and Cornelia. Rather, the focus is on Cornelia relationship with his 11 yr old daughter, Clare Hobbs. Martin is divorced from his wife, Viviana. She lives with Clare. She has become increasingly unstable, and despite Clare’s warnings to her father, he takes no action. Clare’s mother has an emotional breakdown. She becomes “someone you don’t know and someone who doesn’t take care of you anymore”. She leaves Clare on side of the road.
The Clare character in this book is central to the plot. Resourceful and wise beyond her years, Clare seeks out her estranged father, who in turn drops Clare in the lap of Cornelia. Cornelia and Clair form an unbreakable bound. They face many difficult choices in the book together (Martin dies, Viviana returns, Cornelia falls in love with her brother-in-law Tao), but the focus on the Clare/Cornelia relationship makes the book interesting reading. It is the discovery of what we love and why that makes this book fascinating.
It is the study of love in all its forms and its unexpected arrival at times that makes de los Santos study of the subject so intriguing. Engaging and touching, it is a great book that is worth a look. With both Cornelia and Clair acting as narrators throughout the book, we get a bird’s-eye view into their thought and feelings. The responsibilities of parenthood have rarely been understood or expressed as they are here. Insightful, witty and fun, this modern-day romance is nearly perfect. On the back of this book, there is a fitting quote: “This is a book that will be passed from friend to friend with the words, ‘You have to read this’. To all of my literary friends out there, I highly recommend this book.
You Can Purchase This Book At My Bookstore www.morebeautifulwomanmagazine.com www.theentertainmentcritic.com
Book Review: See Jane LeadPosted Sep-05-07 02:30:36 PDT See Jane Lead
The Entertainment Critic Book Review By James Myers SEE JANE LEAD-By Lois P. Frankel, PhD Published by Warner Business Books An Imprint of Hachette Book Group USA 270 Pages ISBN-13 # 978-0-446-57968-1 (Four Star Rating)****
“A woman’s way of leading hasn’t always been valued, but there’s a change occurring in society that people are hesitant to talk about. It’s what I call the feminization of leadership. To discuss it openly would mean challenging how we traditionally look at leadership-and followership. It would require embracing a concept that many people find threatening: Command-and-control, top-down leadership no longer works. When someone in authority says “jump,” employees, children, and volunteers no longer reply “how high?” The truth is, what followers expect from leaders in the first decade of the twenty-first century-and perhaps beyond-are the behaviors and characteristics that women have been socialized to exhibit. Throughout history, with little or no formal authority, women have influenced direction, change, and outcomes-they were simply never so bold as to call it leadership!”
Dr Lois P. Frankel is back with a new self-help book for women executives, or women who just want to make their lives better, called See Jane Lead. Following up to her tremendously successful book, Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office, Dr Frankel has put together charts, graphs, story illustrations and tips to show what elements make women natural leaders and how to implement their leadership style in any give situation. From running a Fortune 500 company to organizing a calling chain to pick up the kids from soccer, this book shows us what qualities powerful and inspiring women have, and we can implement those traits in our own everyday life.
Her theory is that every woman can capitalize on her leadership skills at work, at home, |
) 