On-the-print

This is one of my favorite Cadell books. The heroine is a nice lady travelling by ship to see her daughter and new grandson. Unfortunately she is quite fond of her young roomate and her brother, so when their father most oddly isn't there to meet them, she goes to spend a day with them and calm them. And their father doesn't come home......but she has a boat to catch. The decision is taken out of her hands, however, when... A very fun book!

In 1893, the parents of seventeen year old Caroline Slade, diein anexplosion at the Washington DC Ford Theater. Caroline and her siblings, used to wealth and luxurious living in an upper Manhattan mansion, are shocked to learn that the debts accrued by their parents leave them all broke. Caroline, her older sister Laurel, and one of her older brothers (Brad) are taken in by their rich Manhattan neighbor, Miss Prentice.

Caroline is able to attend Normal College while Brad completes his education at Columbia. Laurel heads to Rhode Island, looking for a wealthy spouse, but instead returns in disgrace. She marries for money and Caroline^Rs new in-law threatens to destroy the entire family with his tortured soul.

Catherine M. Rae is one of the best historical fiction writers on the market today. Her tales such as FLIGHT FROM FIFTH AVENUE are stupendous looks into a bygone era. That is what makes Ms. Rae^Rs current work, SUNLIGHT ON A BROKEN COLUMN, a bit of disappointment. Though the characters are well drawn and Caroline elicits empathy from the reader, the use of a switching first person dialogue becomes confusing, actually punishes a promising story line, and leaves the reader feeling as if they suffer from multi-personality syndrome. For a taste of Ms. Rae at her fabulous best, try THE SHIP^RS CLOCK or FLIGHT FROM FIFTH AVENUE instead of this novel.

Harriet Klausner

An inspiring collection of contemporary global graphic design in the new millennium, with samples from Australian designers to European designers... nicely layed out images and a great compilation of websites too... it follows the classic typo 1-3 books... the cover sets the pace for this eclectic collection of cutting edge graphics. It's a good representation of what's going on in the world of graphics today...

I'm not much of a Western fan, but the collection contained a "Tales of the Texas Rangers" episode, so I bought it. I was not disappointed. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised. The "Texas Rangers" story was, of course, a 20th Century detective story, but it had a Western setting, and Ranger Jase Pearson got to ride his trusty horse Charcoal as he tracked the bad guy through the mesquite. "Texas Rangers" was a little out of place, but not much.

The other stories easily divided themselves into three types:

[1] Juvenile Westerns: "The Lone Ranger", "Hopalong Cassidy", and "The Cisco Kid". All three were boyhood heroes of mine, and the stories proved quite enjoyable. "Hopalong Cassidy" actually turned in a creditable mystery. I also learned that Clayton Moore was not the only person ever to play the Lone Ranger. Brace Beamer did a superlative job of playing the masked man.

[2] Western episodes from anthology series: "The Lux Radio Theatre" turned in a radio dramatization of the movie "The Plainsman", an inaccurate, forgettable biopic on Wild Bill Hickock. "Screen Director's Assignment" presented "Stagecoach", directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Ward Bond. The production values were excellent. They had to cut some characters and delete plot features to compress the movie into a 30 minute radio play, but the story was still compelling. "Wild Jack Rhett", from "Escape", inspired the long running radio and TV series "Gunsmoke". The show might also have influenced John Wayne's final Western, "The Shootist".

[3] Adult Westerns: "Gunsmoke" has to be the archetypical adult Western, and William Conrad makes for a convincing Matt Dillon. Hearing his voice, however, I couldn't help but conjure up a mental image of his later TV character, "Cannon". The other offerings, however, were every bit as good. Jimmy Stewart turned in a great performance as "The Six Shooter" in a melodramatic murder mystery. The episode from "Frontier Gentleman" may have been influenced by the Greek myth of the Bed of Procrustes. It might very well also have influenced or been influenced by Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". "Have Gun, Will Travel" presented a rather trite story of the dude Easterner coming of age in the rough and tumble West.

Boogie Woogie represents a collection of some of Lewis's best and funniest humor columns of the early 90s. Lewis could take any mundane topic like grits or buying underwear funny and make a funny topic like zits or mooning even more hilarious.

With this, her latest production, Ehernreich demonstrates how she's managed to avoid the fate of working-class America. Through a skillful blend of elastic principles and seizing the main chance, this journalistic entrepreneur has authored a case study in turning other people's hardships in hard cash. Here we find, not an expose' of lower class exploitation, but the epitome of it.

In the guise of a social do-gooder, Ehernrich shows she's no less a robber-baron than a Huntington or Morgan, climbing to new social heights on poor backs. Spend a few months among the prols prompted by one's literary agent, assume a sympathetic self-righteous activist persona, appropriate some labor-related statistics to bolster a non-existent credibility: the whole premise reeks of opportunism and self-promotion. The result: a resounding commercial success complete with best-seller status and $20,000 (you got it) speaking engagements round the country.

The guiding ethos of this docudrama is clear: keep things snappy, bizarre, luridly underworld (digress at length about the "three kinds of sh--t stains"), and above all shallow. No 'character' is depicted with a greater than two-dimensional depth, individuality and pathos being consistently sacrificed for Hollywood-type caricatures ("like a TV comic," "like a comic book character," like "a band of wizened toddlers" are par-for-the-course). Except for occasional one-liners, Ehernreich rarely grants any co-worker a voice. Why should she? They have nothing intelligible to communicate about their plight, while the author is clearly the only sane, insightful personage roaming her solipsistic, sophomoric landscape. (Oh yes, and all white males are pimps or oppressors, and only women and people of color are prone to hardship. The book assures us it's "funny," referring apparently to the author's indomitable paranoia that every white guy walking, standing, sitting, sleeping, smiling, or driving a truck is out to jump her tired old bones.)

While putting up a Marxist pretense of 'us vs. them,' Ehernreich clearly regards her minimum wage specimens as scarcely human; in fact, as so much publishing fodder. No sooner has she exhausted one company of players--milked for their tabloid potential (takes about two weeks)-than she quickly switches to a new cast. And when the going gets tough, this pragmatist has no qualms about cutting her losses and getting the hell out of Dodge.

No attempt is made to trace the long-term ups and downs in these people's lives, a basic prerequisite one would think for any journalist with a social conscience. Why? This would involve commitment, a determination to probe beneath the surface, a responsible presentation that might actually make a difference. Instead we get undigested pabulum, a verbal spectacle of creative-writing-class prose that rises to the heights of a 20/20 "Special Report." One wonders what Ehernreich's next project might be. Black-up with shoe shine and go African American for a week? ("I'm getting a tiny glimpse of what it would be like to be black" p.100. Not bad at age fifty-something). Or perhaps go native, see what the aboriginies have left to plunder?

In a simulation of honest reportage, Ehernreich confesses her inability to fully commit to her project: "No way I was going to experience poverty or find out how it really feels to be a long-term, low-wage earner"; and "I don't know [what happens to someone working a menial job for a year] and I don't intend to find out. But I can guess." She can't, for example, take buses because "a story about waiting for buses wouldn't be very interesting." Surely anyone with an ounce of journalist integrity would cringe at such a rationalization. After a brief stint as maid, she later informs us, in one of her internet-derived factoids, that nearly half of all bus-riders are maids. Go figure. (And why does Ehernriech need a Rent-a-Wreck anyway? Perhaps her BMW would blow her cover?)

But where "interesting" (read: entertaining) is the bottom line, depth and accuracy can apparently go hang. The only in-depth reporting here revolves around the author's yuppie-style preoccupation with protein levels, caloric intake, and buttock sizes. (And Ehrenreich's own usual bill of fare? "How about a polenta-crusted salmon filet with pesto sauce and a nice glass of J. Lohr Chardonnay?" p. 102.) At one point she stages ('Oh me, I plumb forgot!') a "chemical indiscretion" in order to pulpit-thump about drug-testing, and simultaneously hint at her own blue-collar (or is it yuppie again?) hip-ness.

As opposed, then, to a lived experience in the tradition of honorable undercover journalism, we get instead an Oprah-friendly thirteen-dollar-a-pop paperback "full of riveting grit" to be consumed by fear-of-falling upper-middle-classers who want to catch a noncommunicable glimpse of how the other half lives; or a Borders-ready book version of "Survivor": spend a few weeks among the primitives, eat native food, betray your friends, then retire to a life of capitalistic renown and designer salads having "entertained millions of strangers" (p.160). Anyone who's worked a minimum wage job for years, not mere weeks, knows the ink employed to publish Ehrenreich's observations ought to qualify as a fourth type of sh-t stain.

A partial salvaging might have been effected had Ehrenreich the courage to scrutinize her utter inability to descend from a habitually pampered environment of Stairmasters and PBS sitcoms ("my own peasant ancestors . . . ." Whose aren't?) into the minds of the modern working class, thus diverting her chatty edu-slang into an analysis of her own contracted, upper-class psychology. But alas, this would have been not nearly as entertaining, nor as lucrative. And how else pay for her daughter's Harvard education (p.79, fn.)?

No doubt this book will make the rounds of reading groups (don't miss the handy guide) and composition classes for a couple years, until the next cheap stunt topples it and takes its place. Perhaps in a more enlightened age this sort of hypocritical hucksterism would be hooted out of town before it could gain any sort of foothold and pass for genuine journalism. Meanwhile, I wouldn't inflict this coffee shop drivel on my dog.

I bought Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed as an impulse, basically after getting an online recommendation based on my perusal of George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London. Since they have similar themes, why not read both? (Actually, I still haven't read the Orwell, but it's on the list.)

So, what exactly do we have here? Ehrenreich's stated goal was to find out if the economics of low wage work is sufficient to support a person without sleeping in shelters or in her car. So she set out to three cities, Key West, Portland Maine, and Minneapolis, and worked a total of six low paid jobs, trying to arrange housing and eating on the money she earned. That's the basic set-up.

But a book about buying cheap food and comparing rental costs would be boring, so the reader is also treated to Barbara Ehrenreich's thoughts about everything. This is where the book really takes off, for better and worse. Let's face it, life is going to be tough in the circumstances she seeks out. Ehrenreich has many clear descriptions of the indignities faced by the working poor. The living conditions are often far from pleasant and there is much room for improvement. But by the time I got halfway through the book I just wanted to shout, "Shut Up!"

Ehrenreich is a sarcastic writer and thinker. It was actually amusing to read her endless spiteful comments about the homeowners who made use of the maid service she worked for, belittling everything from their personalities to their house's decor and their choice of reading material. One finally realizes how thoroughly annoyed she is that these people have the unmitigated gall to give her a job. Shame on them!

Sometimes her arguments self-destruct. If she wanted us to feel bad about how many employers don't trust the employees not to steal, then perhaps she should not have pointed out that at at least two, and possibly three of her six jobs, employees were actually caught stealing just during her few weeks there, including the clerk that took money out of the cash register to buy drugs with (on company time, if I recall the passage correctly). She states in a later chapter that she personally doesn't care about occasional retail theft. Maybe this is why she gets so torqued out of shape, but I found it hard to sympathize about some of this stuff, or I sympathized with the employers in some passages.

There is, however, a mitigating factor by which I'm giving Nickel and Dimed a high rating. Besides that fact that most of it basically rings true, I don't know that my own attitude would have been any better if I tried what she did, though I doubt it could be worse. She never claims this is a deep and penetrating study, just a journalistic jaunt by a self admittedly well off professional writer working on a personal project with a very narrow scope.

After reading Ehrenreich's novel Nickel and Dimed it became so clear to me why some shunn middle America when we see how some people live there. Crumby housing,liquor stores on various corners and poorly dressed people all who most asume are not looking for work and are on welfare. Supprisingly these samepeople who are looking for or already have full time jobs. They are just like you and me (assuming you had the thirteen dollars to buy the book) and are just having to work ten times harder for their money. Ehrenreich not only dipicts the working poor but becomes part of them; those who work all day in search of the amenities that most take for granted. The only reason that I would not give this book a five is the annoying refrences to her prior life in Key West and Her use of language, which was a little overly done considering we are not all english majors, simply people wanting to find out how some get by in the working world.

Linda Greenlaw made a name for herself as a successful swordfish boat captain based out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Sebastian Junger wrote about her in "The Perfect Storm" and she subsequently wrote about herself in "The Hungry Ocean". (I haven't read either of those so no comments there.) Ready for a change, she returned to the small Maine island where she had grown up, Isle Au Haut. The island has only a few dozen residents, and many of them are her relatives. Like most locals, she set herself up as a lobster fisherman, with her father as her assistant. This book describes her life on the island and one lobster season.

She does tell some interesting stories about what it is like to live on an island, dealing with winter isolation, summer tourists and year-round local politics. However there were way too many passages like this one..."All traps are equipped with hard plastic escape vents that have oval openings large enough to allow 'short' or undersized lobsters to exit a trap at will. Each of my traps has two vents, one in the door and one in the parlor end. Maine State Law requires that one vent be secured with biodegradable hog rings, while the other may be set with stainless steel, requiring little or no maintenance. The idea behind the mandatory biodegradable vent is to ensure the liberty of all lobsters within a trap that may be lost or neglected. 'Ghost gear,' or lost traps, are not a threat to lobsters' lives because the biodegradable hog rings deteriorate within a season, allowing the plastic vent to flop open, leaving a large exit. All biodegradable rings or remains of rings must be replaced when overhauling traps if a fisherman expects to catch anything. Otherwise, lobsters will find open vents, and fishermen will haul up empty traps. I was clumsy with the hog-ring pliers at first, but found more ease and comfort as the morning progressed."...and on it goes, pages and pages of this stuff.

This book would be essential reading for any aspiring lobster fisherman. Not falling into that category myself, I found the level of detail excessive and there simply weren't enough good anecdotes to make up for it. I wish that her editor had been more aggressive. By the end I was glad to wave farewell to both Greenlaw and the island.

This book is an interesting chronicle of a life about which I previously knew nothing. Five years ago, Linda Greenlaw gave up her 17-year career as a swordboat captain and returned home to her tiny island off the coast of Maine to fish for lobsters. Quite a change from her previous life on the high seas! She now "captains" a small boat with her only crew member being her father, a far cry from the excitement of swordfish fishing.

Greenlaw's unadorned, reportorial descriptions of the trials, tribulations, and sometimes- joys of the life she has chosen made for good reading. She gives us the technical and nautical details in ways that seem almost uncomplicated. I had no idea what lobster fishing involved and think she presented it in a great way. Her love of and respect for the ocean is apparent throughout the book.

I especially liked the vignettes of some of the islanders. Most entertaining. The book is really a lovely commentary on life, rather than a "how to" book on lobster fishing.

Remember Linda Greenlaw? The captain of the boat that DIDN'T go down in The Perfect Storm? Here she is again, and she's written a beauty of a book, very different from The Hungry Ocean, her previous book about that nasty storm. Greenlaw has given up swordfishing and lives on a teensy island off Maine's coast where she's a lobster-woman. Only 47 souls live full-time on this island, and she figures she's someway related to more than half of them. This book is a collection of essays, many of which are stand-alone pieces, full of Down East eccentric characters that enrich her life, the island, and the world itself just by the largess of their existence.
I recently participated on a panel with Greenlaw at SF's Books by the Bay and found her to be as open, engaging, self-confident, and funny in person as she is on the printed page.
Read it.

Bennett tries to sound philosophical but he's not. His representation of opposition arguments is unethical in that it's a clear series of straw-man arguments, he deliberately misrepresents them in order for them to be easily knocked down. Not only that, but it's apparent the guy has his head way up his ass.

I can't help but smile at the hypocrisy. Bennett could actually write this pretentious, self-righteous pile-of-crap while he was depositing eight million dollars into a slot machine! Eight million dollars! That's a lot of goddam coins!

I also got a kick out of Bennett lecturing about the profundity and spirituality of sex. Gimme a break! We don't need a whale-of-a-man telling us about how sex should be. But since we're on the topic Bill, I understand missionary might be the only way to go for a puritan such as yourself, but for the sake of Mrs. Bennett what do you say you condsider an alternative? Female superior, or at the very least, a weight-neutral position, should be given some consideration.

If you're a moral fundamentalist or you just hate the Clintons, this book's for you. If you like to periodically read books that confirm for you how psychologically jumbled up some people are, this book's for you. If you like reading things that are, what's the word I'm looking for, worthwhile, this book's definitely not for you.

Damn those Clintons! They were so successful in their campaign to tear down the morals of America, they caused poor, chaste Bill Bennett to become a voracious gambler! And if that wasn't enough, we now have evidence that they hypnotized poor Rush Limbaugh into developing an addiction to illegal drugs! It's not their fault, folks. The Clintons made 'em do it! Thank God we have upstanding Americans like William Bennett to keep us on the moral high road and expose the immorality the Clinton presidency foisted upon our great nation. Look what they've done to the poor, innocent conservatives!

William Bennett's book was written at the height of the scandals of Bill Clinton, just before his Grand Jury testimony. At the time it came out feelings were running high and Bennett as a political opponent of the president took his share of hits as a "Clinton Hater"

Now four years later with a sober mind and with a much more important things to worry about the arguements made by Bennett make more sense, but his fears it turns out were unfounded.

He soundly refutes the arguements of Clinton's defenders and has a great comparison of Clinton's defenders and Nixon's defenders. His part concerning the Biblical defense of Clinton could easily apply to those defending millitant Islam today.

His worry about what the death of outrage would do to our culture was unfounded the country's response to the attacks of last year proved that without a doubt and outrage and American ideals will live as long as America does. The reason it was wrong was this. Bill Clinton was a small man and America saw that. America doesn't waste its outrage on small things.

I loved the entire Cynster series, with only one exception, until now.

The two main characters weren't at all interesting and by the second half of the book I couldn't care less what happened to them. There really weren't any secondary characters to speak of. Basically the book went like this: Woman trawling for an exciting husband meets man she wants, spends all of her time trying to manipulate him into admitting he loves her (not sure why as she didn't love him for quite awhile), they have sex (ad nauseam), he tries to manipulate her into marrying him without admitting he loves her, they are both always plotting against each other to get what they want.

The "danger" in the book is him trying to overcome a "scandal" in his past & her acquiring a lukewarm warm stalker. All of that action is packed into about one tenth of the book. I knew who the killer was as soon as he was introduced into the book.

While I love Stephanie Laurens sex scenes, these were so repetitious and constant that they were boring!

It's time to put this series to rest. After this one I'm not wasting my time on Amelia's story.

I really loved this book! As a fan of Stephanie Laurens's Cynster novels, I wasn't disappointed at all with On a Wild Night. I truly enjoyed it from start to finish, and found myself savoring it like one would a chocolate dessert. Amanda has the Cynster Spark that I really love and was excited to see manifested in a woman. She is very determined from the start to find her soulmate - and once she discovers it's Martin, she goes on a very-Cynsterlike quest for his total surrender of love! He was so perfect for her - he had the similar traits that have made me adore the Cynster males (charm, a certain amount of possessiveness, honor, intelligence, sensuality, and of course great looks). I enjoyed the backdrop of the "less-than-respectable" venues that happen 'underneath' the Ton's entertainments - fun places to steal a few stolen moments together! I was also intrigued with some of the secondary characters (ie. Amanda's twin, Amelia) who will be future characters in On a Wicked Dawn. Readers get a glimpse of the other Cynsters, but they don't overwhelm the story in any way. All in all a wonderful way to spend a weekend: cuddled up with the Cynsters!!

I have enjoyed each of the Cynster novels, and "On a Wild Night" delivered every bit as much as the others. I'm not sure what some other the other reviewers were expecting, but when I read a romance--especially historical romance--I expect some light escapist reading, and this is exactly what you get with Amanda Cynster's story.

Laurens primed readers for Amanda's (and Amelia's) story in the previous Cynster books. The twins both decide it's time to make their match, and each devise a plan for achieving that goal. Amanda decides to search the places young misses are never allowed to go. And while this is not realistic, it is truly entertaining how Amanda manipulates Martin, Earl of Dexter, into courting her.

I loved this book, and I look forward to Amelia's story.

I got about halfway through this book when I simply couldn't take it anymore and started leafing through till the end. I was glad I hadn't taken the time to read all the way through. I found the characters to be extremeley one-dimensional and felt no compassion for them. Hollis was a complete jerk, infatuation or not. Some sort of background on March's marriage to Richard was completely lacking, and then to top it all off, there was no conclusion for March or Gwen. I gave three stars since I thought the style of writing was good, but the characters were so weak, they definitely needed much more depth and substance.

I'm a little surprised to finally be saying this, but...

...I wasn't so keen on this book. Now, granted, I'll happily caveat that this was on an abridged audio edition by Nova, and I am a huge fan of Alice Hoffman to begin with, and this is not her recent novel. But, somehow, it left me a little cold.

Mostly, I believe it was because there was no typical Hoffman magic or mystery to the story. A woman named March returns to her home town with her daughter when her housekeeper dies. After the funeral, she finds herself drawn towards a young man who was raised in her household by her father, with whom she had a strong, nigh co-dependant relationship with in her youth.

They start an affair, the relationship definitely takes a sombre turn (or three), and then, all at once, the book sort of ends. The ending was almost trite, actually. Much like 'Second Nature,' this one didn't do much at all beyond mundane and angry relationship angst, and it left me a little tired on behalf of all the characters concerned. Indeed, there wasn't a single character in the tale for whom I felt relief, or gained a sense of 'they've been saved' about, which is something I adore about Hoffman usually. Even the language seemed less lyrical and immediate. All of that isn't to say the book was bad, just not up to Hoffman's usual wonder-inspiring work.

Perhaps I just need a break from her, but either way, this in no way reached the intense wonderful levels of writing I know and love Hoffman for, like in 'Blue Diary,' 'River King,' 'Practical Magic,' 'Local Girls,' and 'The Probable Future.'

'Nathan

The messages of addiction, self-hatred and self-indulgence were disturbing and twisted...which made this book out to be one of the best pitiful character books I have read. You can't but help pity the lovestruck March and the lost Mr. Justice. The characters in the end make a complete 180 degrees turn, meaning they develop within time, for better or for worse, which only shows the best new psychologic analyst of books so far, is Alice Hoffman.

HERE ON EARTH shows us how people can change, all because of being tied to a tree because of an envious brother, or being posessive of the ones you love. What was the most beautiful would have to be how the author shows us how simple teenage love making every night in your attic can turn into an obsession where you care about the one you love, but don't understand why. Beautiful.