MY

This book was one of the best written books I have ever come across. The author has a unique talent for keeping her reader coming back for more. It was easy to get lost and bring yourself back into a historical era filled with struggle, romance,and social expectations. You can't help but feel the passion which connects you in a way that few others will. Anyone who reads this enlightening charmer, will anxiously await the remaining two of the trilogy.

This historical charmer is a spirited depiction of one woman's struggle between independence and obligation to her family. Set in the South during the Civil War era, Elizabeth finds herself torn between the societal expectations for a plantation owner's daughter and the mystical world of the slaves who raised her. Janet Gorman has a talent for honestly conveying the culture of both worlds without flattery or reproach. Her narrative beautifully weaves together history, feminism, and mysticism through the experiences of one young woman. Even My Family poignantly conveys the issues which underly the human experience. It was a joy to read!

This is clearly one of the best books I have ever read. There are so many unique and interesting elements to this book that you will not be able to put it down. You will feel connected to the main characters as well as the time setting.

This book has to do alot about discovering family, and mainly about one's self. The character in the book named Mai, strugged with these problems. Being half white, and half asian, as well adopted at birth, these things reflected her everyday. Though she knew she was different from her adopted family, the realization never really surfaced, untill a few racial events occured. Dumbstruck, and befounded, she yerns to know more about her family roots. She later on discovers she had an aunt Lien, living in Boston. Not knowing weather she'd be accepted, though wanted answers to her questions, she spends the summer in Boston with her biological family. During this overwheming quest, Mai slowy discovers and unveals the secrets of her past. She learns about all the hardships the family had to make. The amount of things they had to face in order to survive, as well staying strong as a famliy. Mai's visit may have brought back many painful memories, but it brought out alot from people. As well made the meaning of family, more important that you would think.

Overall, I guess what the meaning behind this book is, is that it's important to know who you are, and that family is what bonds all of us together. It's like a spiderweb. Friends, memories, even bickering is what keeps it strong, and that, therefore connects the web together, making it whole.

I found this story to be pretty unique because it is written about a Vietnamese American teenager who is adopted by a Caucasian American family. She deals with racism in the small town that she lives in, majority of which who are Caucasian. From her feelings of not belonging, she goes on a journey to learn more about her Vietnamese roots. Throughout the book, the main character, Mai, is trying to learn about her past involving the mother she never knew. The book is written in a simple and personal way to where you feel close to the characters. With the author's simplistic style of writing, I believe that many young people can easily understand and get enjoyment out of it. I like the way that the author slowly revealed the secrets of Mai's past because it made me want to keep reading to find out the whole story. Other than learning the secrets of Mai's past, there are other stories in the book that are occurring at the same time which enhance the book.

I really enjoyed the book The Face in My Mirror by Maureen Wartski because it is a realistic tale about an adopted Vietnamese-American teenager, Mai Houston, searching for her roots. She begins her quest after a racially-motivated incident against her in her small Iowa town. While she spends her summer with her aunt, Lien, and cousins in Boston, Mai at first doesn't really feel welcome, especially by Lien, who seems to be very cold to her. During this time, Mai learns secrets about members about her family and falls in love. The book is well-written and moves quickly and the revelations of secrets will keep the reader interested. The book also contains realistic depictions of racism and its effects, family relationships, teenage life, the plight of immigrants and the influence of gangs. I recommend the book for young students starting in the sixth grade.

I really liked reading Han's Christian Anderson's biography. You learn a lot about him, and his stories from this book. He is one of the greatest writers ever. He tells the story of his life beautifully. It was full of adventures and travels, of which he tells a lot about in his book. He truly liked all people. I highly recommend this book, and would give it more stars if I could.

The Fairy Tale Of My Life is Hans Christian Andersen's autobiography. Andersen (1805-1875) had an undeniable gift for storytelling that led to the creating of a series of classic fairytales that included "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", and "The Snow Queen. His sense of fantasy, descriptive abilities, and sensitivity to human emotions are also evident in the candor and engaging self-told story of his life from the extreme poverty of a provincial childhood to the international celebrity of his final years. Careful readers will also find valued insights into the sources for many of his most famous and enduringly popular stories. The Fairy Tale Of My Life is a "must" for the legions of Hans Christian Andersen fans!

The Fairy Tale Of My Life is Hans Christian Andersen's autobiography. Andersen (1805-1875) had an undeniable gift for storytelling that led to the creating of a series of classic fairytales that included "The Little Mermaid", "The Ugly Duckling", and "The Snow Queen. His sense of fantasy, descriptive abilities, and sensitivity to human emotions are also evident in the candor and engaging self-told story of his life from the extreme poverty of a provincial childhood to the international celebrity of his final years. Careful readers will also find valued insights into the sources for many of his most famous and enduringly popular stories. The Fairy Tale Of My Life is a "must" for the legions of Hans Christian Andersen fans!

Quite simply one of the most exciting reads possible about one man on a large island (Bougainville) and the Japanese Army that gradually hems him in.

Plenty of heartstopping moments and many times after putting it down, you ask yourself... "what would I do.....?"

Jungle, deep inpenetrable, rough trails which traverse the island over high mountain ranges, waiting for resupply from air at night on a lonely hilltop, knowing that if you die, you die alone --- it is all here.

A shame books like this are not written anymore.

I was given a very old,battered Trash and Treasure copy of this book, and frankly was not interested in WW2 stories.However, one day I started it and within a page or too my heart was pounding with fear and exertion, mozzies were biting and it was steaming hot, hot, hot. I became the 18 year old (18! Good grief!, a mere baby ,a schoolboy) sent by a ignorant command into largely uncharted , enemy controlled desperatly physically difficult territory, and ALONE! What madness, but thank goodness Peter Ryan survived to tell the tale so brilliantly. and to have a distinguished career in academic publishing. A friend of a friend was able to get my copy autographed for me, quite a thrill.

This book by Peter Ryan is amazing. A story of one man patrolling in New Guinea in WW2 with natives, trying to obtain as much information as possible about the enemy, while working behind the enemy lines for more than a year. Highly recommended.

I searched for this book for over 10 months. When I saw the book for sale for less that it's origional price inside the cover, I immediately bought it. I am not a collector but just wanted to read and enjoy it. The book turned out to be in better than perfect condition and I doubt that it has ever been read. The book was also a first edition. I truly would recommend it to anyone wanting to know the true Porsche story.

Complete history of the Stuttgart marque from within the Porsche family - I bought this book and have read it many times - worth every penny... A must for Porsche fans...

I'm very like Porsche's cars design and history Porsche's family. Please, send me book "Cars Are My Life".

I have read this book over and over. Astrid Varnay has so much to offer readers who love opera. It is a great book to read through, but there are parts that take a couple of readings for a trained musician to understand. Her intelligence is evident in every word and so is her humanity. She is most knowledgeable about the works of Wagner and Strauss, so those interested in lighter opera may not be as well served, but her concepts are important for all opera singers. This book is quite honest and those who want some "dirt" on old singers, conductors and impressarios will be well-served. Go for it.

In the pantheon of twentieth-century Wagnerian sopranos, Astrid Varnay ranks very high, though she is woefully underrepresented on available recordings today. Through the efforts of friends and supporters, detailed in the preface, her autobiography has been made available in English, and music and opera fans everywhere should be grateful.

Varnay's story, told calmly but with frequent flashes of wit, begins with the tale of how her parents, both opera singers, met, married, and made their careers in Europe before coming to the U.S. and settling in New York. Young Violet Varnay, as she was dubbed by a teacher who could not cope with her Hungarian name Ibolyka (little violet), worked as a secretary, waited in the Met standing room line and quietly prepared herself for an operatic career. She prepared so well with her coach and eventual husband, Hermann Weigert, in fact, that her resume was met with astonished laughter at her eventual Met audition. The powers that be were quickly won over upon actually hearing her, and her stage career began at the Met in 1941 as a last-minute replacement for Lotte Lehmann in Die Walkure. Before retiring in the late 90s, after a career spanning more than five decades, her voice and dramatic presence would take her to Bayreuth and all of the great opera houses of the world.

It is of course difficult to say how much of the structure of the book stems from the singer herself, and how much from her co-author, Donald Arthur; but one of the attractions of this memoir is the skillful mix of narrative, anecdote and self-analysis of Varnay's numerous roles. She draws portraits of her husband, family and colleagues that leap vividly from the page, without ever descending to mere bitchiness, though she does allow herself some jabs at Herbert von Karajan and Rudolf Bing. The ultimate impression is of a strong, self-aware but not overweeningly arrogant personality--someone one would like to meet and talk to in person. One is touched by her inexhaustible eagerness to perform, and her capacity for discovering insights into roles usually dismissed as worthy only of comprimaria singers. She is also not above laughing at herself, and includes some amusingly informal photographs. Highly recommended.

A lot of opera singers have published their autobiographies the last few years, but almost none are as good as what Astrid Varnay and Donald Arthur have given us here. Yes, we get some dirt (the problems with Bing and von Karajan, for instance) but, unlike others, Varnay never comes across as either bitter or bitchy. Instead it is her story and that's that. She is straightforward, tells her side of things and moves on to another subject.

She also pays the reader the compliment of assuming that if we are interested in her and her career, we will be interested in her roles, some of her reseach on the roles and why she feels the way she does about the characters she played on stage. That is not to suggest for one minute that she gets bogged down in endless tedious details. Far from it! For all of the wonderful digging into her roles, there is also always a delightful quip to go along with it. The humor is there, the talk about colleagues, but it is a refreshing departure from the usual "And then I sang in Vienna and they loved me, and then I went to Berlin and they loved me even more" story. This is obviously the very real story of a singer whose life was the theater.

What stays with me, long after finishing the book, is the enormous amount of work and unrelenting dedication Varnay put into her honeing of both her voice and her dramatic instincts. It took constant hard work, but it was a labor of love--and that love shines through on every page here. The book is the perfect companion to the live performance CDs of Varnay in her prime that are now available. And the world is a better place for having both.

This bk was given to me as a gift. I have truly enjoyed it. It came at a very needed time. I have found myself singing FILL MY CUP LORD, I LIFT IT UP LORD. Emilie is so real in this bk. It is so encouraging. I especially like the 2nd chapter, or devotional about exchanging criticism for encouragment. Anyone that has been harmed by critical words of others will find such love in this chapter. It is so encouraging how important it is to be filled by God. Excellent Bk.

This book touched my heart more than any devotional book I've ever read. Emilie Barnes gently helps us to share with the Lord all of the things that burden us. I purchased this book several years ago and have used it repeatedly. I keep it on display near my tea cup collection and when asked about it, always recommend it to others. I have given it as a gift to several friends who love it as much as I do.

Emily Barnes humbly uses the experiences of her life to gently urge us to lift up our cup of shortcomings to God.

This book is an excellent study of religious expression and gospel music in African-American congregations. Hinson takes his readers through an anniversary service for a gospel group while providing thorough and insightful descriptions of salient aspects of the context for the religious expression that he presents in this sensitive and articulate study. Although Hinson allows for a range of interpretations about what the participants are experiencing in religious devotion, he makes a strong argument that is too easily dismissed in academic research. Namely, rather than explaining away encounters with the supernatural as physical or psychological phenomena, the researcher will gain a different understanding of culture if he or she takes the claims of a believer as a valid starting point for ethnographic inquiry. Hinson suggests that experiencing divine presence provides a new way for readers to truly "understand" what he writes of in this book. I have attended countless gospel services, and Hinson's book provides an excellent resource for gaining a greater awareness of what I have seen as believers "have church." Hinson's methods, theories, and insights as a folklorist provides an incredibly rich and accurate way to complete ethnographic study. This book is also beautifully illustrated with the superb photography of Roland Freeman.

Fire in My Bones is an examination of Afro-American gospel surveying the gospel music program as a whole, considering how it works to join performer and audience, prayer and singing into part of the worship service and how Afro-American Christians have made gospel an integral part of their world. Fire in My Bones is a fine in-depth examination of devotions and devotional services.

This examination of Afro-American gospel examines the gospel music program as a whole, considering how it works to join performer and audience, prayer and singing into part of the worship service and how Afro-American Christians have made gospel an integral part of their world. A fine in-depth examination of devotions and devotional services.

Alexander Gerschenkron is the type of man many of us would like to be: smart, charming, interested in the world, charismatic, etc. His grandson, Nicholas Dawidoff, seemingly captured his life in a surprisingly honest and thoughtful manner. I say "suprisingly honest" because one could certainly understand if Dawidoff were to give in to hero worship -- given the important role his grandfather played in his upbringing. But Dawidoff saves the hero worship and the highly personal anecdotes for the opening and concluding chapters. The 300 or so pages in between give a very balanced depiction of a complicated man, and that's the stuff of great biography. The first half of the book is a real page-turner, chronicling Gerschenkron's difficult times as a young man in revolutionary Russia and fascist Austria. How could Dawidoff possibly keep up this pace once his grandfather settles down as an educator at Harvard? Well, he doesn't, through no fault of his own. Dawidoff's depiction of Gershenkron's latter life is beautifully written, but the exciting pace of the earlier pages simply can't be sustained. Dawidoff clearly spent a great amount of time interviewing Gerschenkron's colleagues and students, most of whom (although not all) were effusive in their praise. But the book tended to feel slightly repetitious toward the end with the ongoing remembrances and non-related anecdotes. For one so close to the story, Dawidoff managed to expertly review and analyze Gerschenkron's complicated doting relationship with his wife, Erica. Also, a wonderfully telling anecdote at the end of the book reveals not only Gerschenkron's character, but Dawidoff's patient understanding, as well. Although Gerschenkron was an expert chess player, somehow he managed to lose his queen to the 14-year-old Dawidoff. Gerschenkron swept his arm across the board, spilling all the pieces onto the floor. "Num, num," he said. "Let's go eat lunch."

Maybe you had a grandfather who was quite wonderful, but you did not have a grandfather who was wonderful like Nicholas Dawidoff's grandfather was wonderful. Dawidoff's charming biography of his grandfather, _The Fly Swatter: How My Grandfather Made His Way in the World_ (Pantheon) starts with his own memories of Alexander Gerschenkron. For instance, Gerschenkron, known as "Shura" within his family, had an arsenal of fly swatters, each of just the proper color and heft for its particular target. The baby blue flyswatter was just the thing for his particular enemy, the wasps, because they were vicious, and the mild color would make them let down their guard. If he were successful in swatting the wasp (not often), he would give "lengthy disquisitions on swatting technique." He would never allow the insect body to be cleaned up, for he "claimed they were deterrents, that other yellowjackets would encounter their unfortunate colleague and feel inclined to keep away themselves."

Shura was, to be sure, a character. But he was also brilliant in an obsessively academic way. He mastered some two dozen languages, but his field of expertise was not language. He was able to discourse on (and write academic treatments of) _Hamlet_ and _Dr. Zhivago_, but he did not teach literature. He was an economist, a quintessential Harvard professor who left a lasting mark on economic thought with his theory of "economic backwardness." He had a rather exciting early life, fleeing the Russian Revolution, and then fleeing the Nazis, before he found himself in the economic department of Harvard that was to be his academic home. He was a natural show-off. He could certainly be obnoxious and overbearing, and his students often felt they were not measuring up to his superhuman standards, but none of them forgot him, and he left a strong mark on the next generation of economists. Dawidoff makes the case that his standards were so exacting, and his sense of the overwhelming complexity of history and economics so complete, that he constantly spent time in library stacks gaining more information, but was intimidated about committing himself in print. He did, however, play chess with the artist Marcel Duchamp, disparage Vladimir Nabokov for an inept translation of Pushkin, and charm Marlene Dietrich to give him her phone number.

One of the great strengths of this engaging book is that it makes Shura's wide-ranging academic endeavors almost as exciting as his flights from political oppression. The love of reading and the love of learning just for the sake of exercising one's mind could not have a finer exemplar. And while most people would regard a life in libraries as unexciting and unromantic, Shura was fond of living his life as fully as his capacious mind would allow. After he had recovered from a cardiac arrest in the foyer of the Harvard Faculty Club, he used to bring his students to the very spot where he had temporarily died. "You know, there was nothing. No beautiful colors. No castles. No bright lights. Nothing. So, if there are things you want to say and do, don't wait. Say them and do them. You won't get the opportunity after you're dead." During decades devoted to learning, this comprehensive biography makes plain, Gerschenkron drove himself to a life which for all of its time in an ivory tower was full of exuberance and courage.

Growing up Nicholas Dawidoff had a talkative and demonstrative larger-than-life maternal grandfather who had lived in, to paraphrase the Chinese curse, interesting times: his home town Odessa during the Russian revolution and Vienna (where he had to start over, learning German as a student) during the rise of Nazism. Alexander Gerschenkron (called Shura) had married a fellow student, Erica Matschnigg, in Vienna, whom he would deem "perfect," and who was his lifelong intellectual sparring partner. To save their lives they emigrated to the US. After a time Shura found work at UC Berkeley, The Federal Reserve Board in Washington DC, and then at his favorite place ever: Harvard. In addition this brilliant and cultured grandfather was kind and funny, educated, eccentric, and more than willing to act as a sort of a dad for his grandson, whose own father was mentally ill.

The one thing, though that Gerschenkron couldn't, or wouldn't, provide for family, friends, or colleagues - or his beloved and loving grandson - was so much as a shred of concrete information about his childhood, his youth, and anything remotely resembling his feelings. No one got into his inner life, and those who tried (and there were many) learned that it was at all times off-limits. So this book is a memoir but also a work of informed conjecture and detection.

Dawidoff, an insightful man and a compassionate reporter, draws a careful and reasoned portrait, "a biographical memoir, a work of reconstruction" that is a pleasure to read. The "dismal science," economics, has never seemed so vitally important and downright interesting as it does in this book.

Gerschenkron was hyperactive; he gave up reading the newspaper in middle age, citing the number of books he had yet to read and reasoning that the time the papers took from this was objectionable. He loved to argue and to win, but he was courtly, too. He practiced what he called "French manners," combining recognizable rules of European etiquette with extreme chivalry. He could be exasperating, but he was generous and possessed astonishing depth and breadth of knowledge (in many areas, not just economics) which he more than willingly shared with the world. Gerschenkron developed theories of economic behavior that are classics, now, and some which were of great importance to US policymakers' understanding of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and of developing nations' economic behavior. He was a prolific essayist and loved literature. Rather than read translations, he taught himself entire languages. He worked out chess problems without a chessboard. He was a character, and became something of a curmudgeon in later life.

Gerschenkron was also fiercely loyal to certain things - countries, colleagues, ideas, people, and the most ordinary stuff of his life. Dawidoff takes pleasure in this information, and I did, too Of Shura he writes. "[He] had a party (the Democrats); a team (the Red Sox); a player (Ted Williams); a board game (chess); a breed of dog (Labrador retriever); a flower (pink rose); a lower body haberdasher (he sent to a Vienna tennis shop for white linen trousers); an upper body haberdasher (he ordered his wool plaid lumber jackets and matching caps from a hunting supply outfit in Maine); a brandy; a chocolate bar; an aspirin; a bullet; a pencil; a shaving soap; a foreign bookstore; a domestic bookstore; a barber; a newsstand (he would go miles out of his way to buy his periodicals from Sheldon Cohen at Out of Town News); and a weekly news magazine (L'Espresso)." And of course he had a school, Harvard, which he loved beyond all measure. Gerschenkron's calculus was simple: the US was the best nation on earth, and Harvard its best school. He thrived there. Dawidoff claims that Harvard "made his personality possible."

Gerschenkron dominated people and gatherings and enjoyed contact, but also required and demanded great blocks of solitude. Sometimes he hurt those he loved. He insisted that his young daughter practice her flute when he wasn't at home, because the sound annoyed him. He disappointed his daughters often and had some stormy relations with friends and colleagues.

There's hardly a dull moment in this account of a life and the many lives that Gerschenkron touched, and Dawidoff has provided enough interesting tangential information to serve as jumping-off points for a lot more reading and inquiry.

There are Source Notes and Acknowledgements. The books lacks an index, which is a real shortcoming. There are hundreds of interesting and important people, places, and works of art and scholarship in this book and its publisher ought to have splurged on something so essential as a good index. Gerschenkron (a lover of notes, acknowledgements, appendices, and indices) would agree.

It is about the lesson we learn about the daily life.It is a reflection of the personal life about the ladies.Carmen is such a lady who opens her inner soul and dare to show her emotional state publicly.The poems make me feel that how lucky I am to be alive,to enjoy various gifts given by god .With her affection and resentment about love ,I can see how sensual and fiery the poems are.I was moved to tears by MOTHER,for the great love given by all the mothers in the world. I was so moved by You Hate Me,You Don't Know How to Love me,Painful Love and so on.I was full of joy when I read Kiss Me,Lust...I loved my true love more when I read Dreaming,Seasons of Love...But I love all of the poems so much that it is hard for me to say which one is the best. I am so deeply moved by her poems ...

Well, I was reading a review about this book at bn.com but, they had ran out of copies of the book so I came to amazon.com and ordered a copy of this book... and I am glad I did buy this book. This new poet has an amazing way with words... when you read her poetry you can feel her feelings.... she brings you into her verses, her poetry is very descriptive and so realistic that you as the reader cannot escape her verses... and she makes you go into her poetic world... reading this book will make you cry, lust for love, and long to be loved... she is a very gifted poet... the poems I loved the most are; Mother, Making Love, Love Sheets, The Rose, Loneliness, Dead Inside, Scream, Kiss Me, Hunger, Heat, Raindrops, The Poet, Paint, The Chair and Eleven Days. I cannot wait for Professor Castro's next book... and for anyone who is reading my reveiw, I don't know this new poet... but, in me she has gained a number one fan of her poetry...

For You My Lady: Reflections of a Female Life In Poetry is a new treasure from a new poet. Carmen Castro is very accomplished in her collegiate and corporate worlds but with this work she delves into another world. A world where we all live but, for the most part, keep ourselves anonymous to others. A world where, our emotions, our passions, our loves, even our fears dwell. With this poetic compilation she can soothe your inner-most feelings ... or stir them into a passionate frenzy. She makes us all realize that inside ourselves, where our passions live ... we should nurture and nourish them, not just bring them to the surface when we are stressed or love finds us. The one short story, Personal Reflection, and the 58 poems she brings to us delight our senses taking us from a young woman's love for her mother (Mother), to a mature woman's romantic devotion to her man (Seasons of Love) and their love.

Everything in between introduces us to all facets of human feeling, mostly good and warm, and some hard and cold, and many are hot and sensuous, but all are feelings that exist in our lives, feelings we should own and embrace.

Ms. Castro dedicates this work to her mother and her college students. There is no doubt that her mother provided this author with the strength and fortitude needed in a world that is sometimes cruel but is always worth being a part of. And with this work she passes those lessons to her students ... and to us. This humble Puerto Rican writer will touch many of us with this combined Spanish and English version publication. It will appeal to men and women from teen-aged to senior-aged and all in between. I am one middle-aged man who was so moved by her poetry that I chose to share my thoughts with all of you today. We buy books to be entertained, enlightened, or even stimulated to feel things we think are not ours to feel. Buying this book of poetry will perhaps change your view of the later. You will feel ... and those feelings will belong to you.