Editorial Review

National Bestseller 

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walkedalone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher JohnsonMcCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and mostof his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life forhimself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter....

Reviews

Brilliant and Unforgettable
There is little suspense (in the traditional sense of the word) in Krakauer's Into the Wild, as anyone who reads the synopsis or picks up the book instantly learns that it is the story of a young man, Chris McCandless, who ventures into the Alaskan Wilderness and who never gets out. Chris' body is found in an abandoned bus used by moose hunters as a makeshift lodge, and Krakauer skillfully attempts to retrace his steps in an effort both to understand what went wrong, and to figure out what made McCandless give away his money, his car, and head off into Denali National Forest in the first place.

His book was one of the most haunting, unforgettable reads in recent years for me. I was mezmerized by passages in the author's other best-selling masterpiece Into Thin Air, such as the passage involving stranded and doomed guide Rob Hall, near the Everest summit, talking to his pregnant wife via satellite phone to discuss names for their unborn child. However, I was unprepared for the depths of emotion felt in reading Into the Wild - it literally kept me up at nights, not just reading but thinking about the book in the dark.

Some reviewers criticized the book because they thought McCandless demonstrated a naive and unhealthy lack of respect for the Alaskan wilderness. This is no hike on the Appalachian Trail - Chris was literally dropped off by a trucker into the middle of nowhere, with no provision stores, guides, or means of assistance nearby at his disposal. He had a big bag of rice and a book about native plants, designed to tell him which plants and berries he could eat. "How could he have been so stupid?", they ask.

Well, I certainly didn't feel compelled to give away my belongings, pack some rice and a Tolstoy novel and walk into the woods after reading the book, but the author does a remarkable job of exploring McCandless the person, including passages derived from interviews with the many poeple whose lives he touched in his odyssey as he drove and then hitch-hiked cross country from his well-to-do suburban home. Some of the more touching parts of the book involved tearful reminisces by some of these old aquaintances when they learned he had perished.

Krakauer also throws in for good measure an illuminating passage about a similar death-defying climb that he foolishly attempted at about the same age as McCandless, with little training and preparation, providing insight into what makes a person attempt a dangerous climb or hike. He even tells several fascinating tales, all of them true, of other recreational hikers who were stranded in the wilderness.

By the end of the book, I thought I understood McCandless' character, and I thought Krakauer was probably right in putting his finger on exactly what caused his death. I was moved by his plight regardless of his possible foolishness in venturing into Denali, and the final scenes involving Chris' family were emotionally devastating. You need not be an outdoorsman to appreciate it, and in fact unlike Into Thin Air the book is completely accessible to those who know nothing about the subject. I think this book is destined to become a classic.

INTO THE WILD...INTO YOUR HEART
This is a poignant, compelling narrative about Chris McCandless, an intelligent, intense, and idealistic young man, who cut off all ties to his upper middle class family. He then reinvented himself as Alexander Supertramp, a drifter living out of a backpack, eking out a marginal existence as he wandered throughout the United States. A modern day King of the Road, McCandless ended his journey in 1992 in Alaska, when he walked alone into the wilderness north of Denali. He never returned.

Krakauer investigates this young man's short life in an attempt to explain why someone who has everything going for him would have chosen this lifestyle, only to end up dead in one of the most remote, rugged areas of the Alaskan wilderness. Whether one views McCandless as a fool or as a modern day Thoreau is a question ripe for discussion. It is clear, however, from Krakauer's writing that his investigation led him to feel a strong, spiritual kinship with McCandless. It is this kindred spirit approach to his understanding of this young man that makes Krakauer's writing so absorbing and moving.

Krakauer retraced McCandless' journey, interviewing many of those with whom he came into contact. What metamorphosed is a haunting, riveting account of McCandless' travels and travails, and the impact he had on those with whom he came into contact. Krakauer followed McCandless' last steps into the Alaskan wilderness, so that he could see for himself how McCandless had lived, and how he had died. This book is his epitaph.

A wonderful, utterly unique book
I loved this book. It's one of the most original and satisfying works of non-fiction I've read in a long time. Mr. Krakauer writes beautifully, and he did an amazing amount of on-the-ground research to unravel the mystery of Chris McCandless, a very remarkable, if difficult, young man.

Having just read the 1-star review below by the anonymous person from Freeport Maine, I can't let his/her negative observations pass without comment. First of all, Mr./Ms. Freeport accuses Mr. Krakauer of writing "Into the Wild" in order to cash in on the success of his bestseller "Into Thin Air." This is somewhat unlikely, because "Into the Wild" was published more than a year BEFORE Mr. Krakauer wrote "Into Thin Air"!

Also, Mr./Ms. Freeport opines that McCandless's "story and his family should be left alone. Shame on Mr. Krakauer for attempting to profit from their intense loss." The only problem with this opinion is that the McCandless family has stated publicly that they are extremely glad Mr. Krakauer wrote "Into the Wild."

In early 1996, a month or two before Mr. Krakauer went to Mt. Everest, I saw him give a lecture/slide show about "Into the Wild" at a Borders bookstore outside of Baltimore. At the beginning of the lecture Mr. Krakauer introduced Walt and Billie McCandless, Chris's parents, who were in the audience that night. After the slide show I approached them and told them how much I admired their son. Then I asked them what they thought of Mr. Krakauer's book. They said they were extremely grateful that Mr. Krakauer had written it, because "Into the Wild" had answered many riddles about their son that had been troubling them--riddles that would have otherwise gone unanswered. Mr. McCandless even admitted that in some ways Mr. Krakauer had probably come to know Chris better than they knew him during the last years of his life. Both Mr. and Mrs. McCandless spoke quite highly of Mr. Krakauer's integrity and his skill as a journalist.

Facinating! (Sorry it's so long, but read on...)
I'm afraid to sound overly enthusiastic about this book for fear that those so "annoyed" by it will take their anger in spending [money] on Jon Krakauer. Krakauer is a great journalistic writer and his work and research far exceeds any ficticious adventure flick.

I can understand how one can get confused with the shifts in location and time during McCandless's two year journey, but retracing the man's steps should not be the focus. Krakauer enlightens the reader and unfolds the mystery of McCandless's death as interviews, childhood experiences and stories of similar adventurers give greater insight to the man's psyche. I was continuously facinated as I read highlighted passages from McCandless's books, grafitto, et al which Krakauer includes at the beginning of each chapter. All the research he has done is not just laid out flat, but revealed in a dialogue between him and the reader.

Others I've read remark McCandless as stupid, selfish, uninteresting, and a waste of a human life, suggesting stories by Jack London as a superior examination of human condition.

"McCandless [and other readers obviously] conveniently overlooked the fact that London himself had spent just a single winter in the North and that he'd died by his own hand on his California estate at the age of forty, a fatuous drunk, obese and pathetic, maintaining a sedentary existence that bore scant resemblance to the ideals he espoused in print" (44).

It is sad to know that such a life holds more respect than one man's passion to actually live out his beliefs as did McCandless.

As far as calling this man stupid and selfish, some readers happen to skim over the parts about his college education and donating [money] to OXFAM America, a charity dedicated to fighting hunger. I don't know where you live, but how many teenagers do you know who read War and Peace and spend the last of their money to buy hamburgers to give to the homeless while their peers are out partying?

McCandless may have been overly confident and stubborn to make his way on his own, but weren't his ideals real? Those who knew him speak of his true love of nature and high spirits. How anyone can claim he was wasting his life instead of living for the gain of material possesions is beyond me. McCandless reached his dream of living off the land and he did it for over 100 days, while others work their whole lives and feel empty, never knowing the real beauty of the world.

Krakauer tells of experiences with Alaskan hunters who claim that McCandless was wrong in thinking the animal he killed was a moose after examining the bones. "It was definitely a caribou...you'd have to be pretty stupid not to tell them apart" (177). Krakauer later found out that the animal was in fact a moose. Seems as though the natives are overly confident of themselves as well.

And had it not been for a bit of information left out in a refernce book of edible plants, McCandless may have survived.

The main thing that saddens me when I read reviews with low ratings is the hypocritical way the reader will toss off a man's life as not worth the pages in this book while complaining about McCandless wasting his own life. No one is trying to make this man out as a saint and judging his actions on your own ideas of success does not give your life more reason.

I'll end with a few quotes of the book that some may need to read over:

"McCandless wasn't some reckless slacker, adrift and confused, racked by existential despair. To the contrary: His life hummed with meaning and purpose. But the meaning he wrested from existence lay beyond the comfortable path: McCandless distrusted the value of things that came easily. He demanded much of himself-more, in the end, than he could deliver" (184).

"'Sure he screwed up' Roman answers, `but I admire what he was trying to do. Living completely off the land like that, month after month, is incredibly difficult. I've never done it. And I'd bet you that very few, if any, of the people who call McCandless incompetent have ever done it either, not for more than a week or two. Living in the interior bush for an extended period, subsisting on nothing but what you hunt and gather-most people have no idea how hard that actually is. And McCandless almost pulled it off'" (185).

Brilliant, subtle, and unforgettable
"Into the Wild" is one of the most unusual and powerful books I have ever read. Krakauer tells the story of Chris McCandless very skillfully, in haunting, mesmerizing prose. Krakauer's themes are grand, but he makes his points with great subtlety and understatement. Some readers have failed to understand what he is up to, but those who are perceptive will get it.

Some readers, for instance, apparently didn't understand why Krakauer included two chapters about his own solo Alaskan adventure, which he undertook when he was the same age as McCandless. But Krakauer's inclusion of these chapters is absolutely essential to the book's success. Far from being "filler," these chapters explain (albeit between the lines) why Krakauer was so obsessed with the tragedy of ChrisMcCandless, and shed a great amount of (indirect)light on McCandless's motivations.

The writing techniques and structural strategies Krakauer employs in this book are quite sophisticated and somewhat risky, and will no doubt pass over the heads of some readers, but I think the risks Krakauer took are worth it, and the book succeeds brilliantly when all is said and done. "Into the Wild" will one day be recognized as one of the classics of twentieth century American literature. If you read it, I guarantee it will get under your skin. You will not be able to stop thinking about Chris McCandless.

Freedom and Wilderness
This is the tragic stroy of Christopher McCandless, a man who was willing to sacrafice everything for a chance at experiencing life as few people ever do. One day Chris, or Alexander Supertramp as he preferred to be called, decided to cut all ties with the modern world and live in absolute freedom. Jon Krakauer beautifully narrates the reader through Alexander's ill-fated adventure that finally ended in an abandoned bus in the wilds of Alaska. Along the way, the reader is introduced to a collection of colorful people who have also sought escape from the trials of daily life. These glimpses help to put Alexander's uncommon desire to break from modern society into its proper perspective. Into the Wild is also a story about one family's love for their son, and the search for understanding and closure concerning his eventual death. In the process the reader is given great insight into the mind, and possible motives for his desire to escape. But, as we find out this is not just the story of one family, but, the story of many people and families that Alexander touched in his odyessy across America. Despite the fact that Alexander's quest cost him his life, I would dare to say that during those four brief months he felt more alive and experienced more than most people do in a entire lifetime. His warm smile on the opening page is a testament to the happiness, and contentment that he experienced in his self-imposed solitude. Finally, this is not merely a book about the tragedy of death, it is instead a celebration of nature and one mans quest to experience it. ... Read more

Editorial Review

From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language, a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the 1950s

Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century—1951—in the middle of the United States—Des Moines, Iowa—in the middle of the largest generation in American history—the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, he is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around his house and neighborhood with an old football jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel about his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing awful evildoers (and morons)—in his head—as "The Thunderbolt Kid."

Using this persona as a springboard, Bill Bryson re-creates the life of his family and his native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality—a life at once completely familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy. It was, he reminds us, a happy time, when automobiles and televisions and appliances (not to mention nuclear weapons) grew larger and more numerous with each passing year, and DDT, cigarettes, and the fallout from atmospheric testing were considered harmless or even good for you. He brings us into the life of his loving but eccentric family, including affectionate portraits of his father, a gifted sportswriter for the local paper and dedicated practitioner of isometric exercises, and OF his mother, whose job as the home furnishing editor for the same paper left her little time for practicing the domestic arts at home. The many readers of Bill Bryson’s earlier classic, A Walk in the Woods, will greet the reappearance in these pages of the immortal Stephen Katz, seen hijacking literally boxcar loads of beer. He is joined in the Bryson gallery of immortal characters by the demonically clever Willoughby brothers, who apply their scientific skills and can-do attitude to gleefully destructive ends.

Warm and laugh-out-loud funny, and full of his inimitable, pitch-perfect observations, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is as wondrous a book as Bill Bryson has ever written.It will enchant anyone who has ever been young. ... Read more

Reviews

I was literally sent downstairs for laughing too loud.
Seriously. I was up past bedtime, and I was reading Bryson's description of lame 1950's toys. I won't give it away, but imagine what he can do with the topic of "electric football". After a particularly vigorous episode of chortling, my wife trudged out of bed to decree that, if I insisted on continuing to read, I'd have to take it downstairs.

And that's what this book is, a laugh-out-loud remembrance of a simpler, sillier time. Bryson's travelogues are what made him famous, and he never would have made it without a fantastic memory for detail and an ability to convey a vivid mental picture of the topics he chooses. His descriptions of 1950's Des Moines are consistently evocative. It's like a travelogue unearthed from a 50 year old time capsule. I feel like I have visited there.

Still, readers of Bryson known that what truly sets him apart is his uncanny ability to attract and describe morons, as well as all manner of idiotic situations (generally self-inflicted). For a man who can do this on, say, a simple trip to Australia, imagine how much comedy gold can be mined from a childhood in the Midwest of the 50's. It is, as they say, a target-rich environment. His remembrances include family, friends, school, Des Moines, lame childhood toys, nuclear bombs, and more. Even things like TV dinners, which we have all heard mocked before, are skewered in new and amusing ways.

For all of that, though, the memoir is not mean spirited. I think that the ridicule works so well because it is easy to sense Bryson's real affection for his subjects (well, at least the ones who aren't carbonized by the x-ray vision of the Thunderbolt Kid). He's poking fun, but in a way that family and friends might poke fun at each other over old childhood foibles at a Thanksgiving dinner. It's the humor that you get when your wife knows that you're ridiculous, but loves you just the same. This book belongs with such classic tributes to youth as The Wonder Years, Stand By Me, and A Christmas Story. Buy it, and enjoy it. Just try not to read it next to someone's bedroom.

The FUNNIEST book I have read in years!!!
This is a wonderful, funny, and ultimately very human book, which reminds us all, no matter who we are or where we live (I'm Australian) of the total joys of a happy childhood.

Bill Bryson is the first to confess that his was a normal, uneventful and by the standards of today, relatively bland childhood. But thankfully this has been rendered into a book that will have you laughing aloud, as we hear of his evolution into the fearless Thunderbolt Kid, complete with super hero talents; the list of alien (now commonplace) foods that never graced the family table, and the unique and gruesome ways he managed to hurt himself whilst playing (I was particularly fond of the tale where he hit his head on a rock and his friends bought pieces of his "brain" to his house - kids can be so thoughtful).

This is a ray of sunshine in the literary world. It is truly the most delightful thing that I have read in a very long time, and I am a voracious devourer of books. I enjoy Bill's travel books, as he is a talented and observant writer, but this is a cut above - I think his very best to date.

Do yourselves a favour. Buy yourself a couple of hours of happiness and read this book. Buy it for your friends and relatives, and relive your happy and normal childhood all over again. You will all treasure that moment where you remembered how you were a super-hero/alien/king or queen, and then get back to your normal, uneventful, adult lives.

Made in America's Heartland
"Getting into the strippers' tent would become the principal preoccupation of my pubescent years." - Bill Bryson in THUNDERBOLT KID

"Essentially matinees were an invitation to four thousand children to riot for four hours in a large darkened space." - Bill Bryson in THUNDERBOLT KID

As I mature gracefully, reading the coming-of-age reminiscences of others that grew up about the same time I did - the 1950s - becomes an absorbing leisure activity. Perhaps I just need to supplement my failing memory with theirs. In any case, several fine volumes of the genre come to mind: Blooming: A Small-Town Girlhood by Susan Allen Toth, Sleeping Arrangements by Laura Shaine Cunningham, When All the World Was Young: A Memoir by Barbara Holland, and Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir by Doris Kearns Goodwin. As you may have noticed, all four of these are by female authors who are recalling their girlhood. On the other hand, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE THUNDERBOLT KID, by Bill Bryson, is all about boyhood. And, as I think you'll agree, boys are an entirely different species from girls. I should know as I used to be one of the former. For example, boys have a propensity for shenanigans that would elicit an "Eeeuw!" from the gentler sex, as the following passage on Lincoln Logs, of which I myself had a set, illustrates:

"What Buddy Doberman and I discovered was that if you peed on Lincoln Logs you bleached them white. As a result we created, over a period of weeks, the world's first albino Lincoln Log cabin, which we took to school as part of a project on Abraham Lincoln's early years."

Or this regarding the elementary school's space heaters:

"The most infamous radiator-based activity was of course to pee on the radiator in one of the boys' bathrooms. This created an enormous sour stink that permeated whole wings of the school for days on end and could not be got rid of through any amount of scrubbing or airing."

I'm virtually certain that Susan, Laura, Barbara and Doris never did either.

Bill's recollections otherwise ran the gamut of those of any kid of either sex from that era: family vacations, the first televisions, favorite TV shows, the nature of contemporary comic books, toys, soda pop and candies, parents' occupations and eccentricities, Mom's cooking, the specter of The Bomb and Godless Communism, drop and cover drills, Saturday afternoons at the movie matinees, the National Pastime (major league baseball), the State Fair, Dick and Jane books, visits to Grandpa's farm, paper routes, strange relatives, and Best Friends. Oddly, there's no mention anywhere of a family pet. Is it that he never had one? How is this possible?

Then, of course, there's the budding fascination with sex that includes the discovery of Ol' Dad's secret stash of girlie mags and the unfulfilled, feverish desire to see play pal Mary O'Leary nekkid.

As in the author's other books, his ability to tell the story with a wry and self-deprecating wit is unmatched by any contemporary writer that I've read with the exception of Barbara Holland. Both are national treasures.

Bryson's young adventures took place in Des Moines, Iowa, a much different environment than the Southern California in which I had mine. But, there's a degree of similarity that transcends region so long as that region lies in the U.S. of A. One of Bill's nostalgias in particular that I wouldn't have recalled in a million years but is oh, so true was:

"Of all the tragic losses since the 1950s, mimeograph paper may be the greatest. With its rapturously fragrant, sweetly aromatic pale blue ink, mimeograph paper was literally intoxicating."

It's in the nature of the aging human to recall previous times as so much better. Nowadays, as we're inundated with rampant political correctness, discredited heroes, and the pathetic likes of Paris, Britney and Lindsay, I can look back and say about many things, as Bill does:

"... I saw the last of something really special. It's something I seem to say a lot these days."

Laugh out loud funny
Any Baby Boomer who thinks fondly on a childhood in the 1950s will enjoy this book immensely. Born in 1951 and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, Bill Bryson had what we might consider the average middle-class life in the geographic center of America. As such, it's easy for us to nod in agreement at many of the details he recalls: spider-web-like strands of airplane glue that stuck to everything except small plastic model pieces; the confusion of having two different actors play the Lone Ranger on TV; the stilted and unrealistic conversations we read in our Dick and Jane textbooks; and the fact that we all spent our free time outside, making up our own games. Bryson additionally got into a few unusual scrapes with some of his neighborhood buddies, and the distance of time makes each one of their escapades a real hoot. Those post-war days were indeed the best of times and the worst of times. The nation grew wealthy and happier and stronger, and technological advances like television made us feel more powerful. Simultaneously the Cold War intensified, and we grew ever more fearful of a nuclear attack from Russia. It was a unique and great time to be a kid.

"Happily," Bryson writes, "we were indestructible. We didn't need seat belts, air bags, smoke detectors, bottled water, or the Heimlich maneuver. We didn't require child-safety caps on our medicines. We didn't need helmets when we rode our bikes or pads for our knees and elbows when we went skating. We knew without a written reminder that bleach was not a refreshing drink and that gasoline when exposed to a match had a tendency to combust. We didn't have to worry about what we ate because nearly all foods were good for us: sugar gave us energy, red meat made us strong, ice cream gave us healthy bones, coffee kept us alert and purring productively." (pages 69-70)

To his own experiences, Bryson adds historical tidbits that now seem unbelievable, except that we suddenly remember when they were true. Everyone smoked. TV dinners were invented and enjoyed, even though each of the food components had an aluminum taste. The civil rights movement hadn't yet taken full form. No one knew or cared about the dangers of DDT or witnessing a nuclear test from a ridge a hundred miles away. And yet, most of us survived the decade.

Reading this memoir will make you wistful for those days of atomic toilets, comic book Kiddie Corrals, unrated movies, and grape Nehi bubbles up your nose. It'll also have you laughing right out of your chaise longue and Capri pants.

Amazing that this wild child grew up to be Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson was born in 1951 in Des Moines, Iowa. Talk about lucky! "I can't imagine there has ever been a more gratifying time or place to be alive than America in the 1950s," he writes. "We became the richest country in the world without needing the rest of the world."

And Billy Bryson --- white, Protestant, son of a brilliant sportswriter and the home furnishings editor of the Des Moines Register --- was in just the right place to take full advantage.

As many of you know, Bryson grew up to live in England and write first class travel books --- A Walk in the Woods, his account of walking the Appalachian Trail with his out-of-shape friend, Steve Katz, is both informative and hilarious --- and serious studies of language, like Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words. But as a kid, he was a pure doofus. He had no interest in school, his city's cultural institutions or its many opportunities for youth athletics.

By the testimony of this memoir, Billy Bryson had only one childhood obsession: trouble. Namely, how much damage to property and civility could one fresh-faced boy --- and, of course, his posse of equally privileged homies --- do each and every day.

And because kids roamed free in those days and time stretched to the horizon, Billy had all of Des Moines as his target.

Exhibit A: He liked to hide on the top floor of an office building with a central atrium. Seven stories below was a restaurant: "A peanut M&M that falls seventy feet into a bowl of tomato soup makes one heck of a splash, I can tell you."

Exhibit B: He delighted in using a magnifying glass to focus a beam of sunlight on the bald head of his napping Uncle Dick to see what would happen: "What happened was that you burned an amazingly swift, deep hole that would leave Dick and a team of specialists at Iowa Lutheran Hospital puzzled for weeks."

Exhibit C: He once peed on brown Lincoln Logs to turn them white --- and then watched, deadpan, as a teacher licked the toy logs to prove they'd been bleached with lemon juice.

Weird characters abound. Like Bill's mother, who wrote about the home, but was derelict in the domestic arts: "As a rule you knew it was time to eat when you could hear potatoes exploding in the oven." Like Bill's father, who was so cheap that when the Brysons finally drove out to Disneyland, Bill asked his mother, "Have I got leukemia?" Like another kid's dad, doing a swan dive from the high board, changing his mind in mid-air and landing flat: "At such a speed water effectively becomes a solid." And like Uncle Dee, who had a surgically-made hole in his neck: "Whatever he ate turned into a light spray from his throat hole."

Are you laughing yet? Methinks you should be. There is funny, and then there is Bill Bryson, who makes you howl with laughter and fight for breath. "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" is not a book for the seriously ill, the commuter who uses public transportation or even the easily grossed-out. But for everyone over 50 who grew up in a house and had parents who owned a car, health and circumstances matter not --- this is the story of at least part of your youth.

It was a time of flattop haircuts ("landing spots for some very small experimental aircraft"). Cigarettes. Cocktails. Cars with no seat belts, drinks thick with sugar, medicine with no child-proofing. Televisions everywhere. Electric football games. Misbehave, and you get sent to "the cloakroom." Paper routes.

Every once in a while, Bryson sprinkles the pages with seriousness that is all the more powerful for its scarcity. Did you know that Lewis Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, started his career as a shoe salesman? Did you know that, at the peak of the Red Scare, "thirty-two of the forty-eight states had loyalty oaths"? Did you know about Lamar Smith, an African American, who successfully voted in Mississippi --- only to be shot dead on the courthouse steps?

Books that are nostalgic and funny and have seriousness just under the surface tend to have sad, "those were the days" endings. The first mall is built, and right there we know the central business district is doomed. Graduation is like a break shot in pool --- the old gang scatters and never reunites. And so on.

Bryson avoids the gooey emotions by saving his best crimes and his zaniest characters --- Steve Katz, co-star of "A Walk in the Woods" --- for last. Fake drivers' licenses. Beer robberies. And nobility, for in Des Moines, at least, there was, for one gang of kids, honor among thieves.

"I was," Bryson says, "enormously stupid." Yes. He was, and this book is the proof.

But he also says that his book is "about not very much, about being small and getting larger slowly." Wrong. "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" is about being wide-awake and seeing everything and getting every last weird detail down exactly right.

And that makes his memoir almost surely the most enjoyable book you'll read this year.

Vintage Bryson
This is classic Bryson. Full of the trademark gentle humour, charming observations, quirky asides and laugh out loud moments.
I'm a convert to Bryson and so pleased that I discovered this wonderful writer. It started after I read 'Shakespeare My B*tt!' by the UK based author John Donoghue who was described in a review as 'Bill Bryson with a bayonet' (see his work at www.marsupialelvis.com).....curiosity got the better of me and I decided to try the 'real thing'. What a discovery!
As a result I now have the full library of Bryson books and love each one. And this one is just as funny as all those that came before. He manages to capture some of all our childhoods in his writing.If you like Bryson, you'll love this. Vintage Bryson

A wonderful memoir for baby boomers
I always enjoy Bill Bryson's travel books (NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND, A WALK IN THE WOODS) and his books on language (THE MOTHER TONGUE).

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE THUNDERBOLT KID is a memoir, and since Bryson and I grew up in the same decades, I found a lot to like in this book. His writing is always funniest when it's personal and self-deprecating, and his stories of himself as a child are vastly entertaining.

But this book is more than memoir or a string of funny stories about his childhood. Bryson captures the time and place -- 50's small-town America -- and serves those "simpler times" up with affection. In those pre-minivan days a bicycle was a kid's ticket to ride; the movies were a gateway to the world; and a costume, whether the Thunderbolt Kid or Annie Oakley (am I saying too much?), was the passport to bravery and adventure.

I thoroughly enjoyed THE THUNDERBOLT KID, and probably would have enjoyed it no matter which decades were mine. Maybe it's a book of particular interest to the first wave of Baby Boomers, but the humor and whimsy of its presentation are wonderful counterpoint to its well-researched social context.

You're bound to laugh out loud at this book. If you like laughing out loud, then by all means read THE THUNDERBOLT KID.

High school freshmen in 2006 or 1956, you'll love this!
I've read Bill Bryson before and usually I'm left wanting after a couple of chapters. Not this time! I was laughing so much my jaded 14-year-old stopped reading Stephen King, and actually took the book out of my hands. She laughed too, because she has an 8-year-old brother. I don't usually buy books for friends and family at the holidays -- tastes are too subjective -- but this one I probably will.

One warning: it is a TV-14 book, with an occasional f-bomb and some graphic descriptions of body parts (as told from a boy's perspective) so, although I recommend it, keep in mind that fundamentalist relatives and 10-year-olds are not the intended audience.

Both informative and entertaining
I have read two other books by Bryson and enjoyed them but wasn't sure I'd like this, probably because it was about being a child in the fifties (my childhood experiences were in the seventies) in Iowa America (I'm in Yorkshire, England) however I shouldn't have doubted his talent for relating life experiences to just about everyone.

I laughed out loud at his father's out of character taking the family to Disneyland as well as the motley crew of childhood relatives and friends he describes.
He could actually be describing any of our childhoods, from teenage crushes, the hierarchy of a gang of mates, Saturday morning cinema, comics and school. Which ever western country you grew up in you no doubt learnt to read from a book where 'Father' always wore a suit and 'Mother' a frilly apron and everyone said "look" at the beginning of each sentence!!

As well as being informative about 1950's America, it's a really entertaining read for those who like to look back happily on their childhood.
... Read more

Editorial Review

When Abraham Verghese, a physician whose marriage is unraveling, relocates to El Paso, Texas, he hopes to make a fresh start as a staff member at the county hospital.There he meets David Smith, a medical student recovering from drug addition, and the two men begin a tennis ritual that allows them to shed their inhibitions and find security in the sport they love and with each other. This friendship between doctor and intern grows increasingly rich and complex, more intimate than two men usually allow. And just when it seems nothing more can go wrong, the dark beast from David's past emerges once again. As David spirals out of control, almost everything Verghese has come to trust and believe in is threatened. Compassionate and moving, The Tennis Partner is a unforgettable, illuminating story of how men live, and how they survive.

Reviews

Simply but Eloquently Written - a Gift, November 29, 1999
This book moved me as few others have, in part because of the story itself, but mostly by the beautiful, honest and unadorned way it is written. Abraham Verghese opens his lonely soul without pretense or fanfare: unusual for a man, rarer still for a physician. I have worked with physicians and am close to one. Many of the emotions Verghese describes as he cares for his patients I long suspected physicians experienced, but was never certain. Physicians don't wax poetically to non-physicians over the feeling of a pulse or the percussion of an abdomen, fearful it might diminish them. They certainly don't expose their vulnerability or need for friendship as plainly as Verghese does. Despite their skills and accomplishments, both Verghese and Smith remain very much affected by their childhoods and by their insecurities. They are lost souls. Ultimately, Verghese finds his way back while David is lost forever. It is Verghese's sensitive description of this story that captures both the forlorn and the passionate sides to these two men, forever etching them into my own soul. This is Verghese's true gift to his reader.

Poignant, memorable and incredibly honest., October 30, 1999
I just finished a cathartic 15 minute shed of tears. The Tennis Partner took over my life for nearly two full days. I was unable to put it down and afraid to read on at the same time. I was moved by the friendship that blossomed from one main commonality, a love for the game. Dr. Verghese's observations about life, his analogies between tennis and medicine spoke volumes to me. I am neither a tennis player nor a physician, but as a compassionate and feeling person I related to the story and I have been changed. It took tremendous courage for Dr. Verghese to write David's story and to express how it made him feel as a physician, a man, a tennis player, a father and most of all as a friend. As an Arizonan I have a love and a deep respect for the desert. This book may help others to appreciate and fear the desert for its natural beauty and its well-kept secrets. If for no other reason, read the book to grow and challenge yourself. Dr. Verghese's writing style is thoughtful and his sentences are astutely and carefully crafted to say more than you can imagine. You must read every word to hear the whole story. You will be grateful.

A Powerful Story of Searching and Harsh Truths, October 11, 2000
Having been personally trained by Dr. Verghese, I can say that his talent is truly remarkable. It is rather interesting how he describes all the events and scenes of El Paso so vividly and true, that when you are actually at the many locations in the book, one can recall and relay the exact details he describes in The Tennis Partner. He is very poetic, with an incredibly eloquent touch of deepness in his writing. With his worldly experiences as well as his vast knowledge of medicine, Dr. Verghese truly treats his patients with 'culture and sensitivity.' Some may say that I am biased for having known him, but if you could meet him and actually be trained by him, you would be able to see his incredible compassion for his patients, his students, medicine, writing, and the world itself. Very admirable.

An Excellent Look At Human Aloneness and Male Friendship, November 22, 1998
Abraham Verghese's second book, "The Tennis Partner," is far different from his first, "My Own Country," in which he chronicles his work in a rural area in Tennessee as the physician in a "one doctor town." An inordinate number of AIDS cases begin to come his way and he tells the story of his learning quickly how to deal with this challenging disease in an area with extremely limited resources. (An outstanding read available through Amazon.)"The Tennis Partner" begins with Verghese's arrival in San Antonio, Texas, with his wife and two sons where has taken a new position as a Professor of Medicine in a teaching hospital, a prestigious advance in his medical career. Soon into the story, we learn that Verghese finds himself fairly humanly bankrupt as he finally realizes the reality that his marriage is in ruins and now ending due to his own neglect of his wife in the amount of attention he has given to his career. He learns that he is extremely rootless: a foreign born physician, in a new town, with no friendships or personal support systems. Verghese, after assisting his wife establish a new home and a create a sense of stability for his sons, begins to look for an apartment near his wife's home so that he can be near his sons and complete the actual separation from his wife that they have been essentially living for quite some time by this point. Verghese begins a friendship with David, an intern in his final year (actually, we later learn, that David is repeating his internship, due to drug addition having interrupted his earlier, nearly completed internship.) There is a similarity to Verghese's rootless and David's own. The intern, a bit older than the typical medical school following a fairly successful run on the professional tennis circuit. The heart of the story is the newly developing friendship between the two men, the mutually rewarding relationship they ultimately establish in co-mentoring each other; Verghese mentoring his intern in medicine and David mentoring Abraham in improving his tennis game. While sounding simplistic, as one reader, I enjoyed observing the somewhat complex relationship that is rife with the the awkwardness and clumsiness of two heterosexual men essentially creating a non-sexual love and friendship that is a fundamental need that all men have. Verghese's book very accurately mirrors the reality of men needing other men in their lives for significant friendships and characterizes well, the complexity of "male bonding."The story doesn't have a particularly happy ending, yet, it is a true story. It is an excellent documentation of the need for, the high degrees of complexity, the platonic love men often develop for one another, the degrees of petty rivalry and subtle competition that often exist in men's friendships and the ultimate limitations of any friendship - male or female.The "tennis element" adds even more to the story for the person who is a tennis fan but the tennis games and the medical mentoring the two men exchange are, in many ways, metaphors of the manner in which male friendships develop and volley from one side to the other, each holding high expectations of the other, each contributing something to the other, yet careful not to overwhelm the other -- often with one winning more than the other as is the case in this story in both tennis and medicine. Verghese is clearly an excellent physician who takes great interest in his patients and uses his keen personal intuition as one of his best diagnostic tools. Yet, Verghese's sensitivity, attentiveness and keen intuition seems to start and stop at the hospital doors as he shows himself to be quite human in his personal inadequacy, stilted personal development and in his normal human incompleteness. David is equally complex, engaging at the same time he is able be maintain his clear boundaries and keep a certain distance. An excellent and gripping story. Highly recommended!

Thoughtful and insightful, January 29, 2000
As a fan of Dr. Verghese's "My Own Country", I was intrigued by this topic, obviously a departure and a deeply personal memoir, when I first decided to buy "The Tennis Partner". I think enjoyment of this book requires the ability to realize that he is searching for answers regarding the addiction of his friend, a situation which boggles the mind of someone who has not struggled with the same problem. I admire his research into the world of drug addiction and the beauty of his attempts to explain his insights into David's world, actually into David's mind. There didn't seem to be a resolution for his search to understand David, but it seems this book was Dr. Verghese's method of paying tribute to his friend and probably therapeutic way to deal with his loss. The tennis descriptions were an interesting way to tell this story. I like the way he showed the tennis partnership interwoven with getting to know and understand David. To me, Dr. Verghese seemed at a loss to come to grips with what could be happening inside David to cause such destruction in a life of promise. Dr. Verghese even seemed to be unfamiliar with the whole addiction and recovery process, as he was sucked into the life of a dependent so far as to be an enabler of sorts. I admire him for putting his thoughts and experiences together, and exploring his own attitude toward drug abuse.

Excellent study of how great gifts can't save a flawed life, February 12, 1999
Abraham Verghese is a physician, a deeply inquisitive student of human nature, and a dark, poetic writer. This book reminds me of another of my favorites, Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It," with tennis instead of fishing.

In the years that have elapsed since "My Own Country," Verghese's marriage has collapsed, and he has moved to a teaching hospital in Texas. One of his students is a young man named David Smith, who had briefly played pro tennis before beginning medical school. Verghese, an avid tennis player, hesitantly asks if they might play together.

Smith, like the younger brother in "A River Runs Through It," is charming, lovable, smart, and supremely gifted in his chosen sport; on the tennis court, he seems to be transformed into a different, and better, person. But his gifts aren't enough to save his life; he's an intravenous drug abuser, in and out of recovery and rehab. When the two men play tennis together, their support for each other, and their anger and frustrations, are all played out on the tennis court.

As in "My Own Country," Verghese reveals his fascination with people from all walks of life. His emotional inquisitiveness leads him to take risks, as when he accepts a junkie's offer of a tour of "his" world. Yet for all his curiosity and his desire to learn to see the world through the eyes of others, Verghese was unable to save his friend, and he was even unable to save his own marriage. Sadly, he wonders if his marriage might have survived if he had invested himself in it as deeply as he invested himself in the minutiae of tennis.

Remembering, June 4, 2009
I was one of many individuals to have the privilege of knowing Dr. Verghese and David Smith through my association with Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso. The story relating to David's tragic life and death hit me like it happened only yesterday. David was a person that everyone liked. He had a promising career as a physician who wanted to specialize in Emergency Medicine. Unfortunately, his drug addiction brought about his tragic end. This book should be read by anyone that has or is suffering from a drug addiction. From Dr. Verghese's story, one will be drawn into the promise and the darkness that overtook a young man before he could visualize and follow his dream.

Truly A Great Find, December 23, 2000
I highly recommend this real-life account of a physician hisvery moving story of a medical student caught in the black hole ofdrug addiction. I had erroneously picked up this book thinking it wasa fiction novel with some connection to tennis(which I am a big fanof). But when I began reading it I turned over the cover and did seethat is was a memoir. But much to my amazement, Verghese's book readslike a good novel .. and a well-paced, gripping page turner. Despitebeing a doctor, this is not a dry or unemotional work either. Readerswill be drawn into Verghese's life and find themselves experiencingthe same feelings (hope, denial, despair) when it comes to hisrelationship with former tennis pro and now med student"David."

A true testimonial for "The TennisPartner" is that I have passed it along to several other peopleand they have had the same strong (and positive) reaction to it. Theyhave since even recommended the book to others. While this memoirdoes have a good deal of content related to tennis (this is whatinitially brings Verghese and David together) that will enhance thereading experience for fans of the sport, my non-tennis orientedfriends were not turned off by it. Being a fairly avid reader, thishas been one of the best books I have read in the past severalyears. An unforgettable read.

Simply Breathtaking, July 21, 2001
This is the story of ending relationships, and begining new ones. Verghese is embroiled in the breakup of his marriage, as he meets a student who turns out to be his tennis partner. This is a heartbreaking story in so many ways. The dissolvment of the marriage, creating a new life, and the pain friendships can sometime cause. His friend is a recoving drug addict that doesn't have the smoothest path to recovery.

Verghese's writting style is once again beautiful. Painfully honest revealing things about himself that so few of us are willing to do. You feel that you are in a long coversation with him as you read this book. He sets up chapters in this book with scenes in tennis matches and various quotes. These introductions serve as a setup for his narration, preparing you for the story that is about to unfold. Yet it is peppered with wonderful passages of humor.

Many feel this a wonderful book describing the friendship of two men. I think it fits a category much broader than that. All people have had friendships that have undergone the good times as well as the pain, maybe it is refreshing to hear a man speak to openly and honestly about his friendship with another man. I highly recommend this book. Endings, beginings, it is what life is all about. It is very refreshing to have someone be so open with their life. A definate must read!

For the Love of Tennis, March 16, 2001
For any student of the game of tennis who is madly in love with the game and its ability to completely take over your life, 'The Tennis Partner' will ring true in many ways. Verghese understands the passion behind the game and how it can draw two men together despite the difficulties in their relationship. Written with a lucid prose, the book sometimes feels a bit raw in its emotion, but you can hardly fault the author for baring his soul about his love for the game of tennis and his desire to share it with his friend, despite his friend's struggle with drug addiction. The book also treads fragile ground by venturing forth into intense relationships between heterosexual men. The book is risky in its integrity as well as its intensity in the author's descriptions of his emotions for his tennis partner. But, best of all, he desribes beautifully what many of us love so much - the game of tennis. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The instant New York Times bestseller, now in paperback: a moving tribute to female friendships, with the inspiring story of eleven girls and the ten women they became, from the coauthor of the million-copy bestseller The Last Lecture

As children, they formed a special bond, growing up in the small town of Ames, Iowa. As young women, they moved to eighth different states, yet they managed to maintain an extraordinary friendship that would carry them through college and careers, marriage and motherhood, dating and divorce, the death of a child, and the mysterious death of the eleventh member of their group. Capturing their remarkable story, The Girls from Ames is a testament to the enduring, deep bonds of women as they experience life's challenges, and the power of friendship to overcome even the most daunting odds.

The girls, now in their forties, have a lifetime of memories in common, some evocative of their generation and some that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend. The Girls from Ames demonstrates how close female relationships can shape every aspect of women's lives-their sense of themselves, their choice of men, their need for validation, their relationships with their mothers, their dreams for their daughters-and reveals how such friendships thrive, rewarding those who have committed to them. With both universal events and deeply personal moments, it's a book that every woman will relate to and be inspired by. ... Read more

Reviews

Liked and Disliked, May 2, 2010
When I picked up this book I thought it would be the creative-non-fiction telling of 11 women's friendship. Instead, The Girls from Ames, is the journalistic account of these women's lives with a lot of statistics and studies thrown in for good measure.

At the beginning of the book, Jeffery Zaslow wonders if he is the right person to pen this account. I am still wondering. Zaslow is very detailed, but he is very much a man standing outside of this circle of girlfriends simply reporting what he observes. The author's lack of connectiveness prevented me from joining this group of gals as if I were one of them. I always felt like an outsider looking in.

Here is what I liked about this book:
1.I graduated from a high school in Iowa and attended Iowa State University in Ames around the same time the girls were in high school/college. I enjoyed identified with many of the places and events described.
2. I found how these friends supported each other through life's trails very touching and encouraging.

Here is what I disliked about this book:
1. I found the way it was organized to be very confusing. Many times I would have to reread a section to figure out who the author was talking about.
2. The journalistic writing style. The author told us a lot about these girls, but showed us very little. It was like reading a very long newspaper article.
3. I could careless about the various findings on friendships. These studies might be a revelation to a guy, but to us gals, this stuff is pretty obvious. The statistics just weighed the book down.

I am not sorry that I read this book, but I would have a hard time recommending it to anybody. The actually girls from Ames may be fabulous, but the book wasn't.

Left Me Laughing, Crying and a Little Bit Jealous, May 31, 2010
The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women & a Forty~Year Friendship is an intimate look at the friendships of eleven women over a forty~year period. Interspersed with studies that highlight the importance of the development and maintenance of close relationships in the health and well~being of women, The Girls from Ames is part sociology study, part biography and part cultural reference book. The women came of age just at the tail end of the Baby Boom, so they are the immediate benefactors of the women's rights movement and other social changes that marked the 60s, 70s and 80s. It was fun to read about the different hairstyles and clothes the women wore and the music they listened to as their stories unfolded, these cultural references provided a musical and visual backdrop against which their stories could be shared by women from different walks of life.

During a weekend reunion, the women shared the details of their relationships (some good, some bad) with author, Jeffrey Zaslow. They also invited him to look at scrapbooks, read emails, interview friends, quasi~enemies and family to find out what has kept the girls so closely knit when other relationships have unraveled. At points, it seemed that the ladies' relationships were ebbing but the women proved that they did not need constant contact to remain close, especially when email came about and they were able to simply hit "Reply All."

The women have supported each other through elementary school, high school and beyond. They've offered shoulders to cry on when they've been given devastating news and they've given tough love when it was warranted. But more than anything else, they've been there for each other. Even when they didn't agree with the choices that the other was making, they let their feeling be known and then they offered support... That the women were able to love each other unconditionally, even when the other's choices conflicted with their religious or moral beliefs was one of the things that stood out most to me ~ unconditional, unfailing, all~encompassing love.

In many ways, you can tell the author is a journalist; each vignette is punctuated by studies that point out the importance of life~long friendships to women and their health. At first, I found the analysis to be intrusive and more than a bit annoying, however, by the end of the book, I was impressed with how much these women supported the data presented. The overriding conclusion of all of the data presented in the book and supported by the women's lives indicates that women who have strong friendships live happier and healthier lives ~ and when diagnosed with an illness, their chances of survival are increased significantly.

Part of the charm of this story is that each woman offers something to the reader with which they can identify, but more than that is the emotional tug~of~war of the story. At points, I found myself laughing and other times I found myself crying. In the end, I found myself a whole lot jealous. These women have the type of friendship that goes beyond the casual acquaintances that many of us share. They are soul sisters in every sense of the word. I believe the greatest lesson to be learned from this book is to treasure the people around you and never take anyone for granted.


Disclosure: I received this book free from Penguin Group in exchange for a review. I am not required to write a positive review, just an honest one.

Courtesy of Mother Daughter [...], April 30, 2010
The Girls from Ames follows the 40-year friendship of 11 women from Ames, Iowa. Though they are now living in places all over the country, these women have continued to nurture the friendship they built in their school days. They have been available to support each other during the high points of their lives as well as when they faced personal crises.

While I was not always interested in the details of these women's lives--after all how many of us can say that what we liked in high school would be fascinating for others to read about--I was struck by the value their friendship has brought them in so many ways.

The topics of friendship, family, personal response to tragedy and having a place to call home are prominent throughout The Girls from Ames. Stories are told about the girls and women as individuals, and to illustrate the role they each play as a member of the group.

When I started reading the story, I worked hard to keep track of each woman and her circumstances, but I soon came to feel that each person's importance is more as a representation of the kind of person she is than as an individual in this specific group. Often, things they said or did reminded me of people I know in my own life.

In the end I felt The Girls from Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow provides a way for us to reflect on and talk about the value of long-time friendship in our lives. I believe it should prompt discussions within a mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 16 and up about their own relationships.

Uninspiring ;-(, July 2, 2010
I eagerly snatched this book from the shelves of an airport bookshop. The girls are from Iowa -- I'm from Iowa! They grew up in the 70s -- I grew up in the 70s! In fact, I went to school not far from Ames and even lived there for a short while. But, that's where the similarities ended. I tried, but couldn't identify with these girls. Somehow, I don't think it's due to them personally, or their experiences.

I couldn't help feeling that I was getting the author's take on it all, rather than on the true spirit of the girls' friendships. I feel I know (more than I want to) all about the author's political and religious interests. I know very little about most of the girls. I appears some were deemed unworthy of much mention.

The strangest part of the book was the organization. Having written a non-fiction book myself, I agonized over how to make the information flow properly. It's a tough job. Connecting one chapter to another and building concepts was paramount to me. It seems this author put very little thought into the chronology of his information at all. Like a mixed-bag of ideas, the chapters stop and start and often repeat ideas and messages as if they'd not been mentioned before. I know that's not entirely the author's fault, but who edited this book, anyway?

The saddest thing is that even though I SO wanted to love this book, I can't even say I liked it.

excellent service!, May 19, 2010
Excellent Service...book was actually received within 24 hours! (I expected "snail-mail" book delivery, and was very pleasantly surprised by the expedient service! ) Thank You! ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

Build Your Character House, February 28, 2003
If a classroom full of students with BEHAVIOR problems can sit through this book without incident, you can imagine how compelling this story is.

Little Britches is the first book in an autobiographical series. Ralph Moody (aka Little Britches) tells us about his family's move from the East and their struggles and triumphs as they scrape a living from a ranch in Colorado. Ralph is 9 years old, with an older sister and several younger siblings. The book is much more than a chronology of interesting and exciting events-- much more. It is rich in the values of honesty, family unity, ingenuity, and the pride of doing a task well.

There are many strong messages about building character -- earning trust, earning respect, and giving a man a good day's work. Ralph's wonderfully wise father is his primary teacher regarding the building of Ralph's "character house", but along the way Ralph meets other memorable men -- "Hi" the cowboy was our favorite. Ralph gets in several predicaments, doesn't always make the right choice, but takes to heart his father's wise counsel.

This book is a true treasure. I would recommend it for ages 5 and up as a read aloud. 10 and up to be read alone. A great read for adults too -- a "can't miss" present. Don't hesitate -- put it in your library and then share the gift of this wonderful author.

A Wonderful Book, October 20, 2005
Little Britches is one the best books we have ever read! It has sparked a number of conversations with my young sons about character and wise choices. This morning I even pulled it out to read a quote from it after they had disobeyed me about something! The quote is something Ralph's father says to him after he (Ralph) has lied: "If (a man) tells lies to be able to do the things he shouldn't do but wants to, his character will soon become a ruin. A man with a ruined character is a shame on the face of the earth."
I highly recommend this book BUT please be aware that it does contain cursing! Fortunately, we are reading this aloud, so I can skip over objectionable words, but in all the reviews I have read (on Amazon and elsewhere), no one has mentioned this. Am I the only one who objects to my elementary-school aged children reading curse words?
Anyway, wonderful book, HIGHLY recommended!

Little Britches, December 6, 1999
In 1987 while living in Haines,Alaska;I asked the librarian for a good book. I wanted something like Little House on the Prairie kind of story. She handed me Little Britches. I took it home and read the most wonderful adventure of a boy, growing up and learning lessons in life. It touched my heart so deeply I felt I knew him. I returned to the library after I had finished reading the book and asked if he had written any other's. The library owned one other book by Ralph Moody and that was Man of the Family. It was checked out,and not due in for two weeks. I put in a request and waited anxiously. When I finally was able to read it, it was just as wonderful as the first. To my delight Mr. Moody had written many books of his childhood. I have six children who love me to read these stories to them. Of all the books I have ever read, I must say by far that Ralph Moody's Little Britches is my all time favorite book.

A classic to file beside Tom Sawyer on your bookshelf., October 20, 2005
I've read the Little House on the Prairie and Anne of Green Gables series and this beats the lunch money out of both those series! I'm in my mid-twenties and read this aloud with my parents who are in their mid-sixties and we couldn't put it down! We'd read together late into the night, and steal it away to read ahead on our own whenever we could. Little Britches is tough, brave, and hilarious! Ralph Moody has written in a wonderfully straightforward manner of the joys and tragedies of a life lived with dignity, honor, and especially humor. "Father" teaches so simply and beautifully the way to love and raise children. His family becomes so real that you feel like you're saying goodbye to your best friend when the book ends. I laughed and cried and practically wet my pants because I couldn't bear to take a break in the middle of the chapter. I'll read this one over and over. It's something that grows into you and is impossible for you to grow out of.

P.S. DO NOT read this series out of order.

A Wonderful Book For Families To Read Together, April 19, 2000
I read this book after my 9-year old finished it for school. The lessons and values that Ralph Moody learned growing up are so good and true-even if sometimes they were learned the hard way. Mr. Moody's book teaches wonderful values like responsibility, respect, honesty, hard work, and committment and support of the family. The part I liked best was the relationship that Ralph had with his father. This world would be a much brighter place to live in if every son had a father like Ralph's. I think a dad reading this to his kids would teach lessons they all would remember.

A wonderful book of life's most important lessons., June 23, 1998
Little Britches is the sort of book that you wish could be made available to every man, woman and child in today's mixed up world. It is wonderfully inspirational and would go a long way toward making you think about what is really important in life and how you ought to go about being the best kind of human being that you could be. I have re-read the entire Little Britches series for the last 20-plus years and just recently ordered the entire set from Amazon.com. I am thrilled to think that they are still in print and I look forward to many years of enjoyable re-reading of them again. Do yourself a favor and buy Ralph Moody's books. He had tremendous insight about life and living. He would undoubtedly be the kind of man we'd all like to know, be friends with, have as a dad, husband, brother etc. You'll love his books. You'll laugh and cry and be transported back into a wonderful time of life. You'll be left with some great new thoughts and feelings about what really matters after all.

Heartwarming, Enjoyable, readable for any age level, January 25, 2000
I first read a book from this series, "the fields of home" when I was 8 or 9, on my fathers recomendation, he said it reminded him of his father and himself. after reading the story, I found that rather than seeing my father and grandfather, I saw my dad and myself. I didnt know any other books from this author existed until a couple of years ago, when I ran accross the entire box set. my whole family has enjoyed them; both as read aloud books for the younger kids but as quiet reading for the older ones as well as my wife and I. I read the entire series at least once a year, and they never fail to bring a warm feeling to my heart, as well as a close feeling of family ties and kinship to the rural way of life. If the kids of today cared half as much for the well being of the family as Ralph Moody did for his, this would be a much better world to live in

Building a Charaacter House, March 18, 2005
When his New England family is obliged to move out to frontier Colorado at the Turn of the Century, Ralph Moody quickly delights in the western lifestyle. But before the 8-year-old boy can start taming horses and herding cows, he has many hard lessons to learn himself along the difficult road of life, in order to build the walls of his "character house."

The Moodys rent land and a rundown shack on the flatlands outside of Denver, but they must struggle for economic and physical survival in a never-ending series of battles against Nature, the Gold Panic, accidents, his father's weak lungs and the vicious water hogs at the head of Bear Creek. Ralph's own impetuosity and sneakiness land him in trouble, often requiring his parents' ingenuity and patience in meting out deserved, but character-buildihng, punishment. The seemingly incorrigible boy is a source of both pride and despair to his hard-working, honest parents, who strive to prevent their offspring from losing their gentlemanly upbringing in the wild Colorado boonies.

Ralph must come of age in the family's first three and ďż˝ years as Westerners. He meets an old Indian named Two Dog with whom he establishes an immediate and lasting, though rarely verbal, friendship. He confesses his "crime" to the tall, tough Sheriff of Fort Logan, though he never tells Mothers that he did so in a saloon! He idolizes a friendly cowboy named Hi Beckman, who teaches him invaluable lessons about training horses and cows, plus stunt riding and even how to shoot a gun.

But it is Ralph's relationship with his adored Father which proves the core of this heartwarming story. Father doesn't say much, but he provides his son with serious advice for a healthy, decent life. Being promoted to Partner by his father is a great joy to Ralph, who at 11 and ďż˝ was accepted as a man in many ways. LITTLE BRITCHES-Ralph's nicknamed given by his cowboy mentor-is a a wonderful, warm, and interesting story, for kids of all ages!

wonderfull book, April 14, 2002
I'm 10 yeas old. I read it and it gave me a new way to look at things, about life, people and family. Ralph Moody is an ispiering auther and writes great books. I've only read Little Britchs snd the they way Iliked that one I think I and you will love them all.

Little Britches is a wonderful family read-aloud book!, November 3, 1999
I introduced my family to the Moody family under the guise of just reading a small section - just one of their adventures. After that, they were hooked, and we have continued to read the rest of the series. The values of hard work and honesty are present throughout, which makes this a wonderful teaching tool. My children have acted out scenes from the story because the lively adventures of the Moody children are irrestistible. Mr. Moody is a clear and descriptive writer and made us feel like part of his family while reading this book. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Nines Lives is a multivoiced biography of a dazzling, surreal, and imperiled city, told through the lives of nine unforgettable characters and bracketed by two epic storms: Hurricane Betsy, which transformed New Orleans in the 1960s, and Hurricane Katrina, which nearly destroyed it. Dan Baum brings this kaleidoscopic portrait to life, showing us what was lost in the storm and what remains to be saved. ... Read more

Reviews

Beautiful Love Letter to New Orleans, February 11, 2009
New Orleans is a city full of contradictions, a place out of context with the rest of America. It defies understanding, explanation, and most especially, classification. It's a quality the residents hold onto, this testament of uniqueness, even as the city has teetered time and again on the brink of destruction.

I've lived near New Orleans for most of my life. I'm a frequent visitor there, and, like everyone else who comes, I've fallen in love with its decadent grandness, its welcoming, leisurely way of life. All manner of humanity calls New Orleans home, and the city embraces them all. It's a unique place, out of step with the rest of America, and that is exactly why it is so important to save. This has never been truer than now, as the great lady teeters on her knees, still struggling, three years later, to rise from the devastation of Katrina.

Dan Baum, on assignment from The New Yorker after the storm, quickly learned all of these things. Along with his wife Margaret, he eventually moved to New Orleans in order to write a book, one which, using the timeframe between Betsy in 1965 and Katrina in 2005, captures perfectly what it means to love this city.

Baum chose nine people he got to know after the storm, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews, writing the story of the city through their eyes. They are from vastly different ends of the socio-political spectrum, ranging from the widow of a revered Mardi Gras Indian chief to the long-time coroner of Orleans parish, from a transsexual bar owner to a former king of Rex and pillar of the Uptown community. Their stories are unique, yet a common thread runs through them all - the deep, abiding love of this place, of the home New Orleans offers to each.
The author captures that love without being preachy or overly sentimental. New Orleans is far from a fairy-tale land of mutual respect, understanding, and tolerance. Poverty, desperation, and crime are huge, unending problems, and Baum acknowledges this by telling stories that are candid, real, and fraught with generations of loss and disappointment. They are also, however, stories of hope, of people who have risen, time and again, despite adversity after adversity.

Many people in the rest of the United States have questioned why we should rebuild such a place, crippled as it is by poverty and corruption. It takes spending time in New Orleans to learn its value, I suppose, to experience the unique magic that makes this city special. If you can't visit, however, read this book. Dan Baum has clearly seen and understands. Five Stars.

A tribute to a city & a way of life -- and an outstanding achievement, March 1, 2009
A doctor turned coroner, a band and music teacher, a transit system worker, an ambitious woman struggling to achieve a college education, a transexual bar owner and former college football player, a wealthy accountant... These are among the characters whose very disparate lives are woven together in this book that is about all of them and none of them; rather, it is about the city that they share, New Orleans.

"New Orleanians really want nothing more than for everything to stay the same," Dan Baum writes in his introduction to this compelling oral history of the city's misadventures over the last forty-plus years. As well all know, far from staying the same, everything in New Orleans underwent a seismic change in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina blew in from the Gulf of Mexico and along with the floods that followed, transformed the city's geography in every conceivable way. Its citizens were scattered all over the country, the lower Ninth Ward -- home to some of those whom Baum profiles in his book -- was destroyed.

While Katrina's devastation is the raison d'etre for Baum's book, the events of those horrible days in August and September, 2005 are simply the climax of the lives of the New Orleanians he tells the story through. Or perhaps I should say that his nine characters choose him to tell their tales of the lives they lived in the city that they loved and sometimes hated but couldn't imagine living without. It's the story of a city and of the many ways of life that coexisted within it, of the unique 'live for the day' ethos that prevailed there and its strong sense of community.

Once past the introduction, the reader never hears Baum's authorial voice again; each step in the evolution of New Orleans from the cleanup after the devastation of Hurricane Betsy in 1965 to the last thoughts about Katrina's legacy decades later is seen through the eyes of one of the people he profiles. We see Wil Rawlins struggle to rescue some of the parentless children growing up in the city's housing projects by introducing them to the wonders of New Orleans's musical traditions -- in particular the high school marching band. Ronald Lewis battles for equal pay for the (African American) men who repair the St. Charles streetcar line; Joyce Montana watches her husband transform the African American Mardi Gras traditions. Meanwhile, 'uptown', accountant Billy Grace faces his own battles, such as the scornful attitude the city's elite has for his efforts to build a business and create wealth of his own.

The result is something that only the strongest of writers and journalists could produce. The deeply personal narratives -- small chapters, each revolving around events, small and large, in the life of one of Baum's characters -- are interwoven to the extent that events in their lives dictate. But Baum never makes the mistake of trying to develop some kind of master narrative to which his characters' lives become subordinated. Instead, they speak for themselves. It reads as if Baum has been living alongside them for the last 30 or 40 years, privy to all their triumphs and tragedies as they happen. Oral history is a tricky format to work within: the risk is that the book starts sounding like nothing more than a straightforward Q&A between subject and author. In this case, Baum has produced something remarkable; a work in which the author steps to the background and lets those profiled tell of their own lives, in their own way, without judgment or comment. We are part of the moment on the high school gridiron when band teacher Rawlins sees his motley crew of surly students playing dented instruments, get carried away by the music. "Every rest was crisp, every beat precise. Some of them had their eyes closed. All of them were lost, utterly lost, in the music."

Similarly, the reader is able to get completely lost in Baum's writing and the power of the story he is telling. Long before Katrina blows into the nine lives he profiles, you find it impossible to put this book down. And when the hurricane arrives, it's as if it is happening to people you know and love. Even then, Baum avoids the tried and true images and creates new ones that are able to jolt the reader back into seeing the horror with fresh eyes. Writing about coroner Frank Minyard's decision to ride out the storm, Baum tells of the doctor looking out a window to see his "big black bull and donkey (walk) calmly up the road together through the driving rain. He realized that they were evacuating, as he should have done. Now the roads were impassable." When the storm ends, Minyard heads for the coroner's office. Hitting the flooded area, he carefully saves his ostrich-skin cowboy boots -- then swims his way to work.

It's impossible to do justice to this book in a review. Equally, the lives of those who Baum writes about -- and in particular Rawlins and his crusade to save the children that no one else cares about -- deserve the widest possible readership. This may be the best book purchase that you make all year.

More narrative than magic., March 6, 2009
This is a good book, and I found it an easy and quick read. But it is also very lean, even meager. One of the reviewers noted that you don't hear Baum's voice again after the introduction; this is true. In place of an author's voice you get a very stripped narrative of 8 lives, about thirty pages per person spread out over forty years. Given those restraints, Baum does an admirable job, but there's not all that much magic. You get the sense that the real spirit of New Orleans had to be shunted aside to get the tale told. There's one glorious exception, which is the "life" of Anthony Wells, told by himself (he is the only one who was allowed to speak for himself this way). He is all zest and glory, and it makes you realize how much the experience of New Orleans can only be rendered in the first person. The Wells portions, all in italics, are worth reading straight through all on their own. He is like a New Orleanian Neal Cassady.
One way of putting this is that Baum put together in schematic form a kind of Canterbury Tales for New Orleans, but you really can't manage that kind of thing without more first-person narrative. It's the flavor of perspective that really drives the whole.
One more thing. Since Baum was writing nonfiction about living people he would presumably like to remain friends with, there is little that is incisive here. At times you wish you could tell him you're shutting the tape recorder off to get his real opinion on his subjects. I suppose this is why authors turn to fiction - they can put down their real thoughts about people, as long as they change the names. Baum does not appear to be operating with the same freedom.
The overall result is good narrative with surprisingly little color. The book certainly leaves you with an appetite for more, though. The indications you get of complete government collapse (no morgue for dead bodies, no jail to put looters in, all unexplained) certainly make me want to understand why none of our three layers of government were able to respond to hurricane Katrina. That said, this book is not primarily about Katrina.

11 on a scale of 10, June 10, 2009
This is the most powerful and moving book that I have read in a good long while -- so much so that certain passages brought tears to my eyes. I looked forward to reading it every evening and regretted that it had to end. It is simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting, and I already know that it is a book I will look at time and time again. This is journalism of the highest order, and it reminds us that the true drama is found not in Hollywood scripts, but rather in the lives of real people. I have recommended this book to all my friends and am pleased to be able to do so here. Thanks, Mr. Baum, for this wonderful piece of work.

From J. Kaye's Book Blog, February 20, 2009
"Nine Lives" by Dan Baum is a wonderfully written book. "Nine Lives" tells the story of New Orleans from 1965 to 2007 by nine people's biographical accounts. Each of these people's accounts are small interwoven stories by each of the nine. Dan Baum's research and writing shows each person's personality and voice in marvelous detail.

The book starts with Ronald's account in 1965 when he was 14 telling a bit about his life and what it was like for him in the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy. It ends with Ronald's account of the first Mardi Gras parade after Hurricane Katrina. Between those two are stories from a politician, a leader of one the famous Mardi Gras Krewes, a schoolteacher from the Lower Ninth Ward and his wife, a New Orleans police officer, a bar-owning transvestite, the wife of the most famous New Orleans's Indians and an ex-con from the Angola State Penitentiary. These nine people are from different backgrounds and sexes and all from New Orleans.

Some of these accounts are inspiring. Some, especially the ones during and after Hurricane Katrina are unbelievable. Some are downright tragic. All are real accounts by real people telling real stories in their own voices. This is an awesome read.

Fantastic insight into New Orleans, February 19, 2009
I've been looking forward to Nine Lives since I happened to meet Dan Baum on a great trip I took to New Orleans a couple of years ago. He said he was working on a book about NOLA residents after Katrina.

But it is so much more! The book is a cultural history, starting in 1965 and relating different aspects of the city through people of all different backgrounds and social strata. Baum manages to work in so many rich details and observations on what makes the city unique--language, the nuances of the Mardi Gras and Indian traditions, little asides about the food.

As a result, you don't get to Katrina and its aftermath until well into the book--before that, you see how the city slid into a depression when the ports scaled back jobs, and when crack flooded the streets. It makes the hurricane that much more devastating.

This is a beautifully written book, completely engrossing. If you're from NOLA, have ever visited there, or are even thinking about visiting there, read this book.

Mesmerizing account of the people of New Orleans, February 10, 2009
First Line: Ronald Lewis walked past one ruined cottage after another.

Dan Baum moved to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to write about the city's response to the disaster for The New Yorker. What he discovered was that Katrina wasn't the most interesting thing about the city. The question that he felt compelled to answer was this: Why are New Orleanians so devoted to a place that was, even before the hurricane, the most corrupt, impoverished, and violent corner of America?

His answer is Nine Lives, a truly fascinating book that is not only informative, but is also an emotionally and artistically satisfying gourmet meal for readers.

Baum tells us about the lives of nine New Orleanians whose lives are bracketed by two hurricanes: Betsy, which transformed the city in the 1960s, and Katrina. These people cross the lines of age, race, class and gender. They are Mardi Gras Kings, jazz-playing coroners, ex-cons, transsexual barkeeps, women with dreams of white picket fences, and more. As each one spoke to me, I found myself hearing that person's voice. I was transported to the Lower Ninth, to a mansion on St. Charles, to a makeshift mortuary.

"'I'm a lawyer,' Billy said. 'Neither my firm nor the companies I own possess the kinds of resources the city needs.' He sat forward, rubbing his palms together. 'But this is my idea. The collective wealth around this table must be in the billions. Why doesn't each of us, personally, pledge a million dollars cash to the recovery. We can go out of this room and announce that we have sixty million dollars cash on hand: the business community's stake in recovery. Today.' He leaned on his forearms and looked around the room expectantly.

No one spoke...."



Each of these nine people transcended print and became very real to me, and made New Orleans real to me in a way it had never been before. I cared about these people, I laughed and cried and became angry with these people. I was involved. There's not much more you can say about a reading experience.

An Estimable Book about an Inestimable City, July 1, 2009
Cats are said to have nine lives because they're popularly purported to be more tenacious of life than most animals. Dan Baum titled his excellent book "Nine Lives" both because it details the pre- and post-Katrina true stories of nine very disparate New Orleanians, and as a tribute to a city that clings to life with feline tenacity despite powerful forces continually arrayed against its survival. In the face of impending if not inevitable disasters repeatedly flung at the city by nature or man, the people of New Orleans refuse to let their city die. This is a very good thing, as New Orleans is the only major American city where the philosophy of "laissez faire" refers not merely to economic liberalism, but to a way of life riveted to joys other than those that can be measured most readily in minutes and money.

Baum writes well and clearly, in a succinct and fairly journalistic style. The nine people he chooses to follow before and after Katrina are interesting, and in recounting their stories they reveal as much about the kaleidoscopic city they love as they do their tragedies and triumphs in it. Baum's storytelling technique can get a bit choppy as he intersperses the nine stories together over 40 years, switching from one to another. After the first few chapters I chose to read the book by character, rather than in order of pagination.

Baum's book Nine Lives is enlightening, entertaining, and moving. It's a stirring epistle to and from a great American city and its people. I recommend it.

Compelling from the first page to the last, May 28, 2009
The book focuses on nine very different people all affected by similar events within New Orleans, an interestiong place in it's own right. I had a little trouble at the beginning remembering who was who, but by the middle of the book I felt as if I had know these individuals my whole life. Their points of view are fascinating and their life lessons throughout the book are inspiring and thought provoking.

Simply Outstanding!, February 11, 2009
From an outstanding writer comes nine outstanding stories about a beautiful and tragic city. Superbly written, insightful, and touching, Nine Lives really brings you into the heart and soul of New Orleans. This is an outstanding book! ... Read more

Editorial Review

In her early thirties, Louise Dickinson Rich took to the woods of Maine with her husband. They found their livelihood and raised a family in the remote backcountry settlement of Middle Dam, in the Rangeley area. Rich made time after morning chores to write about their lives. We Took to the Woods is an adventure story, written with humor, but it also portrays a cherished dream awakened into full life. First published 1942. ... Read more

Reviews

A wonderful, enjoyable and important book, February 16, 2000
This book is one of the most enjoyable to read you will ever find. It is written in such a clear, humorous and timeless style that you would swear it was written yesterday instead of in 1942. Each chapter answers a question that would arise upon hearing that one had decided to live in the deep woods of Maine---how you do school your children? How do you keep in touch with society? How do you keep house? There are pictures and the kind of nitty gritty details we all like to read! In addition to just being great to read, I think this book is a very important one. I would say it had a part in starting at least two trends. One is the back to the land movement. At the time it was written, you just simply didn't decide to get away from it all and live in the woods! I think this book, which was extremely popular when it came out, put some unique ideas in a lot of heads and may have had a big part in giving people ideas about alternative ways of living. Also, I think it's one of the first autobiograpical books of its type---written plainly but with humor about a unique way of living. I think this book, which in my knowledge has never been out of print, is really one of the key non-fiction works of the 20th century. But don't read it for that, read it because it's fun to read and you will love it!

This is a fun, heartwarming look at Maine backwoods life., September 23, 1998
My mother gave me this book many years ago when I was a young woman. I was a bit "blue" at the time and she said it always gave her a lift to read it and hoped it would do the same for me. Did it ever! I've read it at least 10 times over the years and will probably read it ten more. Louise Rich's description of life in the back woods of Maine in the 30's made me want to go there and parts of the book are hillarious. It truly makes one long for a simpler, gentler time.

Wild Woman in the Woods, January 19, 2002
Louise Rich is not what you might expect a person who has given up the "essentials" of life to be. She is not trying to escape, not trying to save the wilderness, prove a point or return to her roots. Her motivation, quite simply, is that she likes where she lives and is willing to put up with a fair amount of discomfort to stay there. Moreover, she is mightily amused by the questions she is frequently asked by friends and acquaintances, the most common being:
"How do you make a living?"
"But, you don't live here all the year round?"
"Isn't housekeeping difficult?"
"What do you do with all your spare time?"
"Don't you ever get bored?"
"Aren't you ever frightened?"
"Don't you get awfully out of touch?"
"Do you get out very often?"
and
"Is it worth-while?"
Rich's eminently practical, and amusing answers to these questions form the basis of this book and will keep you grinning from ear to ear for hours.

It is clear from the start that Louise and her husband Ralph are more than capable of taking care of and amusing one another, and things only get better with the addition of various family members. These include Gerrish, their friend and handyman, son Rufus, daughter Sally, postman Larry, a skunk, five huskies, a marten and an ongoing parade of visitors, neighbors and "sports" (that's backwoods for tourists).

You will be treated to Rich's opinions on a wide variety of subjects, including women's fashions (and why she couldn't care less what she wears in the woods), the futility of trying to do housework when you're married to a man who loves motors, how to plan meals that take the weather's idiosyncrasies into account, the best way avoid getting lost, cut with an axe or burned by a stove. Even better, you will be taken along on a whole series of hilarious escapades as Rich learns how to cope with life in the woods.

With wry amusement she tells of the day she and her husband delivered their son on their own, her trip to the "Outside" after not having left the woods for 4 years, and the afternoon she spent cooking dinner for a bunch of lumberjacks. Here too are entertaining stories of playing tag with a family of foxes, going berry picking, pulling porcupine quills out of dogs, learning to tie fishing flies and locating hunters who get lost.

The real gift of this book however, is the chance to spend time with Rich herself. Here is someone it would be worth a long hike through snowy woods to visit. You'll feel like you've made a friend by the time the book is finished.

A timeless memoir about the road less traveled., January 2, 1998
Like many others, I was lucky enough to discover "We Took to the Woods" in a used book store. From the first page, Mrs. Rich's description of her family's withdrawl from urban life to the peace of the Maine woods transports the reader to another time and place. The long winters spent by the fire with favorite books, the eager anticipation of the monthly mail delivery, the excitement over the first thaw and the opportunity to replenish the barest of larders...her descriptions of everything from her summer and winter homes to the garden and surrounding woods bring you into her world. And is there anyone who after a long day at work and longer trip home doesn't want to turn off the lights and see only stars and treetops overhead? The best bedtime reading, guarantees many nights of sweet dreams.

Good enough to make me move, December 29, 2004
A friend gave me this book when I was at a very low point in my life. My wife and I read it together, over a long weekend, and packed the car Monday morning. By Wednesday we had our old house listed and Friday we put in an offer on 40 acres with an old farm. We haven't looked back since; but we have given copies of this book to all of our old friends for Christmas.

Maine in the 1930s, July 6, 2005
"We Took to the Woods" is as charming and delightful a book as you will ever find. It's the story of a city woman living on a remote Maine river with her husband and children. She's not poor, nor a rube, nor does she display the eccentricities one associates with people who flee to the wilderness. Rather, she seems happy, well-adjusted, and full of sympathetic tales about the few -- very few -- people she comes into contact with in the course of her daily life. And she really did live in the woods --the nearest store was a long boat ride away and she didn't go "outside" for a four year stretch. Her township of Upton had a population of 182.

The book is set up in chapters that answer questions: "Isn't housekeeping difficult?" or "Aren't you ever frightened." One of the better stories in the chapter, "Aren't the Children a Problem" tells about her husband delivering the author's baby in the dead of winter -- and greasing it with olive oil which he kept to dress his trout flies. The new parents discuss what they are supposed to do with the hot water always called for when a baby is being born -- and they decide to make coffee.

For the modern reader, the highlights of the book are probably tales of the trials of living without conveniences. The Rich houses -- they had a winter and summer house -- had no plumbing. Heating and cooking were with wood. What you needed for groceries was delivered by boat once a month; the Sears catalog supplied the rest. For anyone who has ever thought wistfully of fleeing civilization, this is a humorous primer of both the rewards and hardships of such a life. It deserves a permanent place on the short shelf of Americana classics.

Smallchief

Maine Then and Now, November 1, 1997
Rich, a very resourceful woman, raises her family in rural Maine in the 1930s. The descriptions of the river, the woods, and especially the people are vivid and realistic. I visited the area a few years after reading the book; the area has not changed much.

I very good read. I took it camping and enjoyed every word, August 29, 1996
I bought this book at a used book fair about ten years ago. I recently, on a whim, took it camping with me. A perfect book to read in the woods. I enjoyed Ms Rich's style, her vivid discription of survival in the Maine wilderness, the recipe for baked beans, etc. I will definitely read her other work

Life in the Maine woods - a classic, November 2, 2005
This book is a great read for anyone who's ever had the desire to just chuck it all and head for the woods (a desire that seems to wax and wane like the tides, popular one decade [1970s, for example], totally passe the next). Today taking to the woods for many means building a $500,000 "rustic retreat" with pool, hot tub, and wine cellar included. For Louise Rich, back in the 1930s (the book was published in 1942), things were much different.

For one thing, her house had no plumbing. Water had to be hauled to the house in buckets. Supplies and the mail came by boat. Life was no picnic for her and her family. But, of course, there were trade offs. The beauty of the place, for one. The living as one with nature. The need to be resourceful, and the feeling of pride and accomplishment that goes with it. Trade offs worth the hardships, Rich makes perfectly clear.

Rich captures the flavor of her idyllic spot in the Maine woods a few miles east of Upton along the Rapid River (the swiftest river east of the Mississippi, even though it is only about four miles long). She describes what life is like there, how the busy summers are a prelude to the slow, long winters. She talks about her neighbors, the loggers, the animals they encounter, how one endures and enjoys life in the woods. She describes the effects of the hurricane of 1938 and the havoc is caused even there, so far inland. Her prose style is clear and direct, and she truly makes the reader jealous of her situation rather than sympathetic. It's an excellent book, one that I've read a number of times, always with an I-wish-I-was-there enthusiasm. Highly recommended.

A FASCINATING LOOK AT THE MAINE THAT WAS, AND I HOPE,IS., October 17, 1997
I FOUND THIS BOOK AT A USED BOOK FAIR. IT IS A 1942 PRINTING. A TRULY WONDERFUL LOOK AT LEAVING IT ALL BEHIND AND " TAKING TO THE WOODS " IN THE 1930'S, AND A TREAT FOR ALL OF US WHO WOULD LIKE TO GO BACK IN TIME NOW AND THEN.I WILL SEEK OUT HER OTHER WORKS, MOST CERTAINLY. WORTHY OF YOUR TIME. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Frank McCourt's glorious childhood memoir, Angela's Ashes, has been loved and celebrated by readers everywhere for its spirit, its wit and its profound humanity. A tale of redemption, in which storytelling itself is the source of salvation, it won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Rarely has a book so swiftly found its place on the literary landscape.

And now we have 'Tis, the story of Frank's American journey from impoverished immigrant to brilliant teacher and raconteur. Frank lands in New York at age nineteen, in the company of a priest he meets on the boat. He gets a job at the Biltmore Hotel, where he immediately encounters the vivid hierarchies of this "classless country," and then is drafted into the army and is sent to Germany to train dogs and type reports. It is Frank's incomparable voice -- his uncanny humor and his astonishing ear for dialogue -- that renders these experiences spellbinding.

When Frank returns to America in 1953, he works on the docks, always resisting what everyone tells him, that men and women who have dreamed and toiled for years to get to America should "stick to their own kind" once they arrive. Somehow, Frank knows that he should be getting an education, and though he left school at fourteen, he talks his way into New York University. There, he falls in love with the quintessential Yankee, long-legged and blonde, and tries to live his dream. But it is not until he starts to teach -- and to write -- that Frank finds his place in the world. The same vulnerable but invincible spirit that captured the hearts of readers in Angela's Ashes comes of age.

As Malcolm Jones said in his Newsweek review of Angela's Ashes, "It is only the best storyteller who can so beguile his readers that he leaves them wanting more when he is done...and McCourt proves himself one of the very best." Frank McCourt's 'Tis is one of the most eagerly awaited books of our time, and it is a masterpiece. ... Read more

Reviews

Beautiful book, sorrowful story, January 20, 2000
This is a wonderful book, but it requires that you remove yourself from your negative impressions of Frank as a young man, and enjoy the beatiful story telling of Frank McCourt, as an author. As I read the criticism of this book by other readers, I am dumbfounded that people can critize the book because they don't like the character. The readers complain that they don't like the way McCourt behaved in America. These are complaints against a man and his actions, not against the novel. The subject matter may be upsetting, but the writing is still beautiful. It is utterly unfair to say that one loved Angela's Ashes because they liked the innocent boy Frank, but didn't like 'Tis because they didn't like the man he grew into. This book is brutally honest on McCourt's part. Angela's Ashes was equally disturbing in subject matter and its description of poverty, but the story was told through the innocence of youth and a child. In 'Tis the subject matter can be equally disturbing, but the story is now told through the eyes of an adult and the innocence is lost. This is the sign of a remarkable author, who can take his readers with him through is life and share the events as they appeared to him at the time. It is unrealistic to expect the poor child growing up on the Lane in Limerick to instantly grow into a noble and refined gentleman the way these readers expect him to. This book tells a disturbing and honest story of a man coming of age as an immigrant in New York.

For all of you complaining that you don't like the book because Frank swears, sleeps around, drinks too much and loses interest in his wife, please don't confuse dislike for a disturbing subject matter for dislike for a work of literature.

Tis Not Angela, Nor Should It, Or Could It Be, November 25, 1999
Angela's Ashes was a unique accomplishment on many levels. Tis was doomed before it ever came out because it would suffer by comparison. However, this is still a great read by an interesting man who has great sensitivity to dialogue, and makes some stinging social observations with great subtlety. The books cannot be compared unless you have strong feelings about the skill the writer had, or did not have in either volume. Is the language rougher, yes, this is a man describing his life, not a child. Does he have opinions that are black and white, with little room for gray at times, yes. Part of the problem with moving from one book to the next, is that the memories of a child, and terrible memories at that, are a powerful force to draw you in, and cause one to feel great sympathy and pain for the child. Then the child becomes a man, and it's much more difficult to carry the same empathy from the first book to the second. In fact I don't think it is possible. If you have read neither book, read this first, and then Angela's Ashes. The books change dramatically when you do. The harsh criticism of the man becomes infinitely more complex and difficult if you learn of the childhood that was his formative years. Most autobiographies, or biographies cover a life, not pieces of a life that in this case are still unfolding. The abrupt change from book one to book two is caused, I believe, because they are bound separately. If he had covered the same period in his life with a single book it would have been more comfortable for the reader. I am glad that he did break his life up, as Angela's Ashes will forever remain a book that will gain the title of a "Classic". Book one was brilliant, it was the author's first, it won The Pulitzer, it one other awards, it is about to be shown as a major motion picture. There is no one that can follow that act #1. Frank McCourt is a great writer who I wish had come to us sooner. I hope he lives to be a hundred so I may selfishly read as much as possible of what he writes.

A funny,but truely heart-warming life story., January 3, 2000
'Tis was quite an interesting book. I looked forward to reading this after I read "Angela'Ashes". I was impressed with Mr. McCourt's observations of the American society and culture. Not only was he shocked at some things he saw and experienced in his early years "just off the boat", but he also had to deal with some self-esteem issues. He worked hard at overcoming some of his demons. I noticed he found it quite difficult to forgive or forget in many instances which one can attribute to the bitterness he felt towards the church, his father and sometimes his mother. There were many lessons I got from reading 'Tis such as sticking to ones dreams of a better education, a better life, family loyalty, love and commitment, just to name a few. I do believe Mr. McCourt is a survivor in all respects. His gift of story telling is superb and I commend him in all his endeavors. Overall, this was a great sequel and I thank you Mr. McCourt for hanging in there.

A story of human complexity, October 31, 1999
I've just finished "Tis" and found I have mixed feelings about the work and the author - feelings I didn't have concerning "Angela's Ashes". During my reading, I found myself rooting for Frank McCourt to not fall into the same trap as his father did, that trap the Irish call "the weakness". I rooted for him to go to school, get the girl, live the American dream happily ever after. But this wasn't the way Frank McCourt's life was to be.

So I obviosly made the mistake most reviewers of "Tis" made. This work is a MEMOIR, not a work of fiction nor fantasy. If I take Frank McCourt at his written word, he has been mostly unsuccessful in his life's dreams, and fallen far short of personal goals. The book seems to be more of a self examination held in public for ridicule and criticism - as any good Catholic boy must do. Who else would have to air their linen thus. And who else except a superb story teller could make a success of it in spite of those failings. It's a MEMOIR. It's a sad, joyful, shameful, depressing, and very funny MEMOIR. It doesn't need any psychoanalysis or critical reader analysis, or comparisons to similar authors past or present. It's a MEMOIR!

Sequel Dives Deeper Into Irish Angst, December 27, 1999
Author Frank McCourt may refer to himself as the "Mick of the moment" but in three years, he truly has soared from being a retired New York City school teacher to literary phenomenon.

In 1996, people around the world were moved by McCourt's poignant memories of growing up in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Angela's Ashes has topped best seller lists for two years and won a Pulitzer Prize. Critics and admiring readers alike have been awaiting a sequel and now `Tis here. `Tis, A Memoir picks up where Angela's Ashes left off. As a matter of fact, the title refers directly to the final sentence in Angela's Ashes, serving as response to a sailor's question; "Isn't this a great country altogether?"

`Tis covers the years from 1949 to 1985, when young Frank arrived in New York City. We follow this bewildered young Irishman with the bad teeth and infected red eyes, as he strives for the suburban, picket fence "tormenting American dream".

`Tis, the sequel can certainly stand alone, but I would suggest reading Angela's Ashes first, in order to fully understand the nuances and angst of this son of an alcoholic. Malachy McCourt literally abandoned his young family to starvation in Ireland while he drank his war factory wages in England. Like all children of alcoholics, Frank McCourt yearns for an explanation of how a father could "choose the bottle over the babies".

McCourt's life in the New World was no bed of roses either, as he progressed from cleaning up after the glamorous Ivy Leaguers partying in the Biltmore Hotel to the casual brutality of military life in Germany. After a post army stint loading meat on the docks, McCourt finally finagled his way into college via the GI Bill and some Irish blarney. He then settled into life as teacher, erratic family man and veteran storyteller in the pubs of New York.

In cultural and political perspective, this sequel is much broader in scope than the childhood memoir. McCourt's Dickensian descriptions of boarding house room mates and the edgy comradey of the docks makes for riveting reading. Just imagine 12 boarders sharing 2 towels and 8 beds.

Equally gritty are the descriptions of Frank's military career. Drafted into the US Army at the outset of the Korean War, McCourt ended up in Germany in the Canine corps "despite no rapport whatsoever with dogs". German prostitutes and military typing instructors provided future opportunities for growth. Here again, irony alternates with pathos. A report on the "benefits of kotex in padding the shoulders of the fighting men of America", is followed by a heart wrenching tale of delivering laundry to Dachau. Frank decided against saying three Hail Marys at the ovens because "Jesus hadn't been any way helpful to the Jews in those times".

Angela, McCourt's mother remains a powerful presence throughout `Tis, as she comes to America to spend her final years with her sons. Frank maintains a complicated relationship with her that will be recognized by all caregivers of aging parents-equal parts love and exasperation. Angela's boys continually tried to please her, but never quite succeeded. When she finally died (still complaining) Frank's reaction: "I thought I'd know.....the fine high mourning..to suit the occasion. I didn't know I'd feel like a child cheated".

While there is no poetry in real grinding poverty, McCourt evokes poetic truth in the story of his survival. Always he was able to find escape and solace in books and the reading room of the New York Public Library. He was guided to this haven by a surly bar tender who directed him to the building with the two stone lions and told him not to come back until he had read "The Lives of the English Poets".

McCourt's observations about the icons of literature are fascinating. He was probably most influenced by Sean O'Casey- "the first Irish writer I ever read who writes about rags.dirt, hunger and babies dying". (McCourt had lost three siblings). Later on as a teacher, Frank finds ways to pass on this love of the written word, both to the tough blue collar kids of a Staten Island Vocational School, and to the upwardly mobile preppies of the prestigious Stuyvesant High School. As a veteran substitute teacher in Toronto's inner city schools, I found a truth in McCourt's classroom experiences that I've never read anywhere else. Some McCourt verities: " Teachers are the only professionals who have to respond to bells every forty-five minutes, and come out fighting".......

"Vocational schools are the garbage cans of the school system and the teachers are there to sit on the lids". Frank learned early on that "any group of experienced students in an American classroom can break any inexperienced teacher". These impressions however all fade when he makes the magic break through and begins to genuinely connect with these young minds. "I had to begin enjoying the act of teaching, and the only way I could do this was to start over, teach what I loved, and to hell with the curriculum". It's a joy to read of these "Eureka moments" in his long teaching career.

Throughout `Tis, McCourt doesn't pretend to be any Horation Alger hero. In real life he overplays the Irish card, carousing with brothers Malachy and Michael at their upper East Side Bar, and going out for "beer and teacher enlightenment", instead of home to his beautiful WASP wife and dinner. The marriage founders, but unlike his father, Frank's devotion to daughter Maggie never wavers. She remains his ultimate joy and inspiration.

All through his life, Frank never forgot the admonition of his Irish school master; "Your mind is a treasure house that you should stock well. It's the one part of you the world can't interfere with". In `Tis, McCourt has provided a gem for all of us to store.

You can hear his voice, May 23, 2000
I was excited when this book came along because it meant that I could revisit Frank and continue hearing his facinating story. I think the brilliance of it is the narrative in which it is written. You hear his voice in every sentence; you hear him as he spoke in whatever stage of his life he was in. It's just a wonderful read and, although his story is mostly a string of tragedies posing as birthdays gone by, it's a story of hope. Hope because despite all he had been through he still managed to become what he wanted to be and has succeeded. And to do that and still retain a sense of humor is amazing. Saying anything more about the actual book's contents would do a browsing customer a great injustice. This is just simply a book you have to buy. That is, of course, AFTER you order and read Angela's Ashes.

Isn't this memoir altogether a wonderful book? - 'Tis, September 30, 1999
Once again, Frank McCourt has captured the trials of his life using his very special narrative voice to make us chuckle while we despair right along with him, sometimes all in the same sentence! Humor starts in the very beginning with a very funny tale of having to share a bed with a naked, snoring priest. Perhaps in parts he is a little self-pitying, but a very emotional highlight is when his short story "The Bed" is read aloud by his college professor at NYU. The reflections on his relationships with his parents are remarkably honest, especially his trying to remember the good times with his Dad even though his memories are clouded with the "darkness" of his father's drinking and abandonment.

Although this book is not as good as "Angela's Ashes", I felt the same way as I neared the end: I was disappointed that it was ending. It's not so much that I really care so much about what happens to him going forward, it is the lyrical prose of his memory that is so captivating.

The ending is quite different from Angela's Ashes, and having gone through that particular episode very recently in my own life, I found some solace in knowing someone else's reflections on the topic. Besides, how can you top the ending to "Angela's Ashes"? Young McCourt realizes his childhood dream of getting back to the US (after poor and miserable childhood conditions in Limerick), gets off the boat and gets laid! Bottom line: If you loved "Angela's Ashes" you will like "'Tis" a lot.

A Natural Progression, December 4, 1999
Those of us who grew to cherish the irresitible McCourt children of "Angela's Ashes" waded through Malachy's memoirs until we could take up the Limerick jigs in brother Frank's sequel. Well here 'tis and though many readers have been dissappointed in the struggles in America, struggles so related to the prior Irish version of world view, I find the growing pains of the "re-patriated Frank" endearing. The view of the self as secretively fraudulent is not new, but rarely has the payche of the American Dream been so personally defined. We all are foreigners to this land, whether in our generation or ones past, and following Frank McCourt's voyage from being "uneducated" to becoming a warm and caring Teacher brings many moments of tender relating.

Although the significant charm of "Angela's Ashes" was McCourt's uncanny ability to maintain the child's point of view, means of thinking, modes of expression that made his book so touching, "Tis" fleshes out all the characters seeded in that memoir and allows the passage of time and maturity of the original voice to win us over at last. Is it a perfect book? No. Is it worth your reading? 'Tis.

A work and a life in progress, December 21, 1999
......but what a hard act to follow after the whole world took Angela's Ashes to it's heart. What a book! I resisted reading it for so long as I felt it was in danger of becoming over hyped. In the end it won me over of course, so I wasted no time in reading 'Tis when it arrived. Frank is now in the process of becoming a man, so the perspective is a little different. There's not the same amount of good natured forgiveness towards his parents anymore, rather Frank has to work through some of his feelings, especially when he returns to Ireland, and when his mother arrives in New York. Although there's not as much humour as in the first book his eye for character is as spot on as ever. I particularly loved the tenderness of Frank's description of his workmate Winston, and his feelings for his wife Mike. Imagine being able to evoke those feelings again, I don't know how the man conjures up the memories. I'm looking forward to the next book, and I hope that other readers will remember that it's someones life we're dealing with here and not some work of fiction. (Or, to borrow from Frank, it's not Charles Dickens where the main character turns out to be the long lost son of the Duke of Somerset, and all live happily ever after)! My feeling about 'Tis is that it was Frank's long dark hour of the soul, and having exorcised a few of his ghosts he may write a book that offers a little more hope next time. Bring on the next instalment I say, this man has things to say about life and those who live it that are quite unique. I can't help but want a happy ending, Frank McCourt deserves nothing less from life.

The Dream You Wish You Hadn't Woken Up From, October 26, 2000
I thought 'Tis was a magnificent book and a great complement to Angela's Ashes. Frank McCourt has many strengths. He has the ability to incorporate dialogue into his story and keep the flow extremely smooth. When reading 'Tis I felt like McCourt and all of his friends were acting out their lives in front of me. The images McCourt created were so vivid. Even though McCourt and I come from different backgrounds I could relate to many of his feelings, his uneasiness with dancing, his approach to education. I felt like his feelings were so honest, he included the "good" and "bad" things he felt, from being faithful to his mother to the women at the refugee camp. 'Tis is a story about human nature, with none of the facts or feelings left out, it is painfully honest. McCourt's humor is also unmistakable, his Irish blood shines through his writing! I enjoyed reading about his teaching experiences. I am a student, and I was reminded that teachers have families, pasts, and lives as well as their students. On completing the book, I read a review by Robert Sullivan (Vogue) that was a perfect example of how I felt throughout the book "...funny, sad as hell, written with sentences that seem to come from the dream you wish you hadn't woken up from..." The book's ending disturbed me in that I am still hungry to find out the next chapter of McCourt's life. I'm wondering what happened after Stuyvesant, what happened to Alberta? Maggie? ... Read more

Editorial Review

Set in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, Wait Till Next Year is Doris Kearns Goodwin's touching memoir of growing up in love with her family and baseball. She re-creates the postwar era, when the corner store was a place to share stories and neighborhoods were equally divided between Dodger, Giant, and Yankee fans.

We meet the people who most influenced Goodwin's early life: her mother, who taught her the joy of books but whose debilitating illness left her housebound: and her father, who taught her the joy of baseball and to root for the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges. Most important, Goodwin describes with eloquence how the Dodgers' leaving Brooklyn in 1957, and the death of her mother soon after, marked both the end of an era and, for her, the end of childhood. ... Read more

Reviews

great story about a child and her father with the love of the dodgers as thier strongest bond, January 22, 2008
Doris Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize winning author. She is a democrat and mostly she writes about politics. However several years back she took part in Ken Burns documentary film on baseball and portrayed her memories and love of the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s and later as an adult in Massachusetts, the Boston Red Sox.

This stimulated her to reflect on her childhood days as a Dodger fan and she decided to write a book about it. But as she carefully researched her memory and her past she found that it was all intertwined with her life groing up as an impresionable girl on Long Island in the 1950s. Her parents her friends and her future wriing career were all tied togehter. So this delightful book is a memoir of her childhood growing up and living and dying for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
I am 55 years old, slightly younger than Goodwin but I too grew up in the 1950s on Long Island and can relate to many of her experiences. She discusses how she started learning about baseball and the Dodgers when her father taught her how to fill out a scorecard. In the evenings during their quiet time together she would use the scorecard like a cue to narrate the game she listened to on the radio that day. This brought the game to life for her father and created an interest in her in narration that carried on into a career of writing.

The book flows marvelously and you see the world from the eyes of an impressionable grammar school girl. Goodwin is somehow able to go back and put herself back in the mind of that little naive child. We see her devotion to the Catholic church, the fear of polio in the ealry 1950s before the vaccines. I know this so well as I contracted polio in the summer of 1953 though I never got it so bad as to need an iron lung. We here of her confessions as she admitted to her priest that she wished harm on the Dodger opponents. We learn about the kids in the neighborhood, all Dodger, Giant or Yankee fans. I was a Yankee fan but my brother and all my friend that I played ball with as a kid were Dodger fans. The Dodgers were the most popular team in New York. They were the underdogs and the team for the common working man.

Goodwin's first boyfriend was a boy she got to know because he was a Dodger fan and they could talk so comfortably about the Dodgers. This is a story about the Dodger players she admired; Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Don Newcombe and Carl Furillo and the Yankees and Giants that she dispised, Mays, Mantle, Martin, Berra and others. It is a story about devotion and heartbreak; Bobby Thomson's home run, the story of Mickey Owens' dropped third strike. Billy Martin's heroics is 52 and 53. But it is also the thrill of 1955 when Dodger fans finally didn't have to say wait till next year.

As all this goes on we also hear about her mother's health problems and her childhood girlfriends, the beginning years of television, the Army - McCarthy hearings, the cold war, the civil defense drills and the fallout shelters, memorable events for those growing up in the 1950s.

Thank You, September 18, 2004
I have read that authors read reviews by readers. I hope Ms. Goodwin reads this. This is simply a wonderful book
This is the second time I read this book. I read this for a book club. I had remembered the portions about baseball and the wonderful relationship between Ms. Goodwin and her father. The rereading does not diminish the pleasure of this portion of the book.

The second reading permitted me to think about the the insightful description of growing up in the 50's--an experience I share with Ms Goodwin. It was a simpler time when fathers came home the same time and mothers stayed home and raised the children. Children owned the streets and everyone was growing together. Ms. Goodwin also points out that it also was a time when woman could not work. A simpler time is not always the better time.

The most interesting portion of the book on the second reading is the foreshadowing of what is required to be a historian. Joining her ability to recreate a ball game as the beginning of her career as a historian, which she points out depends upon the ability to tell a story. SEcond when historical events such as the integration of Little Rock we see her mastery of history.

I used to think that No Ordinary Times was my favorite book. I will reread that as well but right now it has taken second place.

A Great Book about a Great Game, January 6, 2000
As a genre, baseball books are of two general types- the rarely interesting memoirs of a jock or coach, or the baseball writer/enthusiast's dissection of the game in general, or of a season or team in particular.

"Wait Until Next Year" by Doris Kearns Goodwin is of the latter genre. A lifelong baseball fan who grew up in a Long Island suburb of New York City, Goodwin grew up rooting for her father's favorite team- the Brooklyn Dodgers in what many regard as the golden age of baseball, the late 1940s and early 1950s.

It was an era where the Dodgers went to six World Series in ten years (1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1956) and won the title over the hated Yankess in 1955. It was an era that saw baseball integrated by Jackie Robinson, and some of the best players in history (Robinson, Duke Snider, Willie Mays, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin) wowed the fans time and again with their spectacular play. And Goodwin watched it all while growing up. "Wait Until Next Year" is as much a memoir of growing up in suburban Long Island in the 1950s as it is a remembrance of what baseball was like in that long-gone era.

Anyone who followed sports as a kid can remember what it was like to watch their heroes on the television, fervently hoping they may emerge victorious (this baseball fan was crushed to watch the big, bad Oakland A's slaughter his heroes, the San Francisco Giants, in the 1989 World Series) or being so fortunate to actually attend a game in the flesh. This reader smiled as he read Goodwin's memories of attending a game at Ebbets Field, her horror at Robby Thomson's miracle home run in the 1951 playoffs that lifted the Giants over the Dodgers, her satisfaction with the Dodgers triumph in the 1955 World Series, and finally her sadness at the Dodgers decision to depart for Los Angeles in 1957.

A very good book that even non-baseball fans will find hard to put down.

A Perfectly Clear Snapshot of A Time and A Place, January 14, 2001
It goes without saying that Ms. Goodwin is among America's finest writers; her Pulitzer prizes prove that. Yet Ms. Goodwin herself has said in interviews that of all the books she has written, WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR seems to strike the strongest emotional chord among her readers.

This book is writing at its best and, therefore, it's good reading. It will be of special interest to anyone with a passion for baseball, particularly the Dodgers, especially before the team left Brooklyn.

Yet this memoir is more than just a baseball story, though that part is fascinating. It offers a good picture of the energy found in the States during those years immediately following World War II, and an excellent history of the expansion of New York City and the immediately adjacent suburbs at that same moment in time.

My father and his brothers, like all little boys born in Brooklyn in the first decades of the 20th Century, were avid Dodgers fans. By 1986, three of the four brothers had died. My bachelor uncle remained alone, 85 years old, though I phoned him every day and visited him frequently. During the '86 World Series, I was trying to engage his attention; his mind was clear, but his enthusiasms had abated.

So I tried to instigate a conversation. "What do you think of the Mets? Can you believe that they won the Series?"

He responded, "I have to tell you, sweetheart, that after the Dodgers left Brooklyn, we never again cared that much about baseball." I understood that when he said "we," it wasn't meant in the royal sense--he was referring to three brothers who had predeceased him.

My uncle died in 1994, at the age of 93. He remained a voracious reader until the day he died. The highest compliment I can pay Ms. Goodwin is that I am sorry that he did not live long enough to read WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR. It's a wonderful book, and he would have reveled in it.

Let this be the year!, January 27, 2003
There isn't much of a plot to "Wait Till Next Year"--Brooklyn girl and rabid Dodger fan grows up very Catholic in the late '40s and early '50s, while her mother slowly wastes away and dies. The title is a catch phrase that Brooklyn Dodgers fans used over and over again when their team was eliminated from the pennant race for yet another year. Dodgers trivia jostles against family history, and wonderful set-pieces on, for instance what it was like to own the first television on the block.

If you were a city girl who grew up during this same period in America, many of the author's stories will resonate with you: not being able to play in the water on a hot summer's day, not even a wading pool, because of your parent's fear of polio; ducking under your desk or filing down into the furnace room during your school's air-raid drills; the book-and-brick smell of the local public library, where each of the books had a date-stamped sheet glued to its back cover.

Is that really me and my sister in the photograph on the back cover, or did all little girls wear bangs and plaid back then?

The most angst-filled stories in the book were about the author's father, who raised his young sister after being orphaned at an early age. His brother died of tetanus, his mother in child-birth, and his father, of grief. His one remaining sister died a few years later in a freak accident, but he managed to pull himself together after all of those untimely deaths, educated himself, got married, had children, became a Brooklyn Dodgers fan--all of this without self-pity or rancor. Maybe he really did belong to 'The Greatest Generation.'

This is a sweet coming-of-age story, guilelessly told--an excellent read for a nostalgic baby-boomer or a rabid baseball fan.

Growing Up with the Brooklyn Dodgers, February 17, 2002
"Wait Till Next Year"
Doris Kearns Goodwin
ISBN 0-684-84795-7

This memoir of Doris Kearns Goodwin's childhood on Long Island brings back memories of growing up the 1950's. She tells how all the neighbors in her subdivision knew one another, how their children played together through all the houses, and how the first neighbor to get a television set in 1946 invited all the others over to watch, at a time when there were only 7,000 sets in the entire country. Mrs. Goodwin's story of following the ill-starred Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team along with her family and most of her community of Rockville Center evokes a melancholy for an America that slipped imperceptibly away from those of us who lived through the time.

I long ago ceased to care about major league baseball and the millionaires who play it. They go where the money is, but the players of the fifties mainly stayed with the same team for most of their careers. Reading the names of the 1950's Brooklyn lineups in this book -- names like Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Don Newcombe, Duke Snyder, Preacher Roe, and Johnny Podres - re-acquainted me with my long lost knowledge of the teams and players of those days.

It was charming to read about how the young Doris Kearns schemed to break Gil Hodges out of a hitting slump one year by giving him her St. Christopher's medal and how much she treasured a long-sought autograph finally obtained from Jackie Robinson, major league baseball's first black player.

The portraits that Mrs. Goodwin paints of her mother, who died when the author was fifteen, and her father are created with fine strokes. Her frail mother taught her to respect people, such as a poor, elderly Ukrainian woman in a rundown house whom the neighborhood children thought was a witch. Her father gave her a guide for the struggles of life through a love of baseball and loyalty to the long-suffering Dodgers.

From 1941 through 1953, six times the Dodgers won the National League championship and six times they faced the New York Yankees in the World Series and lost. But in 1955, the Brooklyn Dodgers played the Yankees a final time in the Series and won, four games to three. In a fifteen-minute period that followed the game more phone calls were made in the immediate area than at any time since VJ day. Trading on the New York Stock Exchange pretty much came to a standstill. Thousands of people converged on Brooklyn to dance in the streets.

The headline the next morning in "The New York Daily News", with a twist on the hopeful slogan that had been the watchword of Dodger fans for years, read, "This is Next Year!"

It is fitting that Mrs. Goodwin, a well-known presidential historian, endowed her own sons with a love of the game of baseball. After all, one of the better things that one learns from sports, as this book affirms, is to take pride in the accomplishments of the past and to look forward optimistically to the future.

Something to Touch the Heart, March 26, 2007
So many people recommended Doris Kearns Goodwin's charming memoir, "Wait Till Next Year," that I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

Experiencing her youth in the forties and fifties as I and many of my reading friends did, Goodwin struck chords that reverberated movingly with us. Though the story takes place in Rockville Centre, New York, a suburb just a train ride away from Brooklyn, her pictures of herself and her friends in front yards and back yards, her schools and churches, drug store and neighborhood could have been taken in any American suburb of those distant days.

These memories make up a different kind of "fan's notes," as she tracks the ups and downs and near misses of her beloved Brooklyn Dodgers, the team she followed faithfully as a six-year-old in 1949, until "dem bums" finally delivered a World Series championship in 1956. Her team, with Gil Hodges and Roy Campanella, and even their radio announcer, Vin Scully, moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and became my wife's favorite team. My "Whiz Kids," the Philadelphia Phillies of the fifties, with Robin Roberts and Ritchie Ashburn and Eddie Waitkus received mention and reminded my wife and me of the days when you could count on the same players returning loyally to play year after year for the same team.

In addition to the thread of baseball running through the book, Goodwin touches on national events that characterized the times for anyone who lived through them: the death of FDR, the Korean War, the Rosenberg spy case, McCarthyism, and forced school integration in Little Rock. She remembers Elvis and James Dean and covers faithfully the rituals of growing up in the Catholic Church. There is something here to touch the heart of anyone who grew up in those naive times of the 1940s and 1950s.

Growing up in the Fifties, January 19, 2007
Doris Kearns Goodwin captures the essence of the post WWII era, when many New York City families were finally able to move from the city and have their own homes in the suburbs. As I was one of those families, we also brought our love for baseball. If you came from the Bronx, you remained a Yankee fan and if you came from Brookln, as Doris did, you loved the Dodgers. This book was sweet and poignant especially for me. And that is because I spent part of my childhood in the same town that she did...Rockville Centre, NY.. I graduated the same High School , South Side, that she did ...just a few years ahead of her. We shared some of the same teachers and memories. It brought me back to time 50 years ago when we faced some different and yet some of the same problems that we face today. This was a story told with tenderness and love and I loved all of it.
Steve Bank , SouthSide '54

"Wait til Next Year" a winner!, May 27, 2000
Doris Kearns Goodwin is famous for her biographies, especially the Pulitzer Prize winning, NO ORDINARY TIME. Her new book, though, is not about someone else's life, it's about her own. "When I was six, my father gave me a bright-red score book that opened my heart to the game of baseball." Goodwin begins to recall the game that was her childhood into this "score book". Although the cover of her memoir, WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR, is not bright-red, it serves it's purpose well. Goodwin writes a "play by play" account of her life from the time she first recieved that score book till the end of her childhood at age fifteen. Underlying it all is her passion for baseball and the New York Dodgers and her hope that they will win the World Series. The author attributes her love of narration to baseball. Every day, Goodwin would recount to her father, using the system he taught her, that day's game as he got her ready for bed. As well as a sign of her father's love, this ritual introduced her to the art of storytelling. "It would instill me in an early awareness of the power of the narrative, which would introduce me to a lifetime of storytelling..." This book is filled with poignant stories about the relationships between the author and her family and friends. It also draws on the many experiences of Goodwin's from her first trip to Ebbet's Field, to her hero, Jackie Robinson. There are stories about her religious experiences as a Catholic, her obsession with James Dean and how, at first, television brought her neighborhood together. The significance of the era is portrayed well. For me, this book was particularly interesting because of my own love of baseball. Just reading it made me long for those hot summer days when major league baseball is played. I can also simpathize with Goodwin over how many times her team came close to winning the World Series. As a Cleveland Indian fan, I have been waiting my whole life for the Indians to be crowned champions. They have not one a World Series since my Dad was born, in 1948. This theme of resulted in the title of her book, a popular saying among Dodgers fans,"Wait till next year". Not only did the story amaze me, Goodwin is an extraordinary writer. Her writing clearly and smoothly tells her story. I could almost hear her narrate the book while once in a while two characters would have a conversation. I could visualize it all too. WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR is a passionate, well written, captivating book. A must read for all! ... Read more

Editorial Review

This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. It is the story of Bragg's father, a hard-drinking man with a murderous temper and the habit of running out on the people who needed him most.

But at the center of this soaring memoir is Bragg's mother, who went eighteen years without a new dress so that her sons could have school clothes and picked other people's cotton so that her children wouldn't have to live on welfare alone. Evoking these lives--and the country that shaped and nourished them--with artistry, honesty, and compassion, Rick Bragg brings home the love and suffering that lie at the heart of every family. The result is unforgettable. ... Read more

Reviews

One of the best books I've ever read!, July 2, 1999
My priest is from Alabama and kept asking me if I'd read this book. The first thing I did after I finished it was to email him so we could get together to discuss it. Then I wrote ten pages about it in my journal, and next I called my sister to tell her about it and talk to her about our own family. Rick Bragg is a gifted writer who does "talk Southern," and I understood every word. My mother's people were sharecroppers during the Depression. I know how hard she tried to raise us out of her own poverty, what she sacrificed, and how well she succeeded. I saw in my own history both those things of which I am most proud and those things of which I am most ashamed. He softened my shame and strengthened the pride, as I'm sure he did his own. Naming the demons frees us, and I thank him for helping me to name a few of mine. I'll recommend this book to everyone, including my high school journalism and American literature students. It touched me in a deep place.

A powerful memoir of growing up poor in the South, November 9, 1999
All Over But The Shoutin' is Rick Bragg's gift to his mother. Bragg, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for The New York Times, has written a powerful memoir of growing up poor in the South. At the center of his story is his mother, raising her three sons to manhood.

A deep understanding of the South is woven throughout the book, along with an appreciation of this region's poorest people. Rick Bragg was raised in a family led by his mother after she finally broke away from his alcoholic and violent father. Vivid memories crowd the book's pages as Bragg writes of his upbringing: surrounded by an extended family, food, hard work, and racism. There were several different cultures in the South of Bragg's youth. Whites belonged to classes, with corresponding differences in education and expectations. Bragg got only a few glimpses into the lives of the wealthy South. His upbringing was among the poorest of the poor. In his culture, men were expected to fight hard and dirty when insulted. Drinking and getting drunk was part of male gatherings. Salvation was found in religion, which surrounded people on the radio, in church, and when family got together. Women cooked huge meals that took hours to prepare. They were responsible for doing what needed to be done to hold a family together and raise the children.

What Bragg carries from his childhood are a fierce and protective love of the South, an affiliation with those who live in poverty wherever he finds them, and a hatred of those who grew up privileged and feel superior because of it. He also carries into adulthood a fear of fatherhood: a concern that he will become as his father was. This causes the breakup of his marriage and leaves Bragg in mid-life looking for something that he feels is missing. Finally, Bragg carries with him a sense of personal inferiority: that he is unworthy of his career, because of his lack of education. Many of these themes come together in the year that he spends as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He is surprised at his selection for this program. He is angered by ignorance and "petrified opinions" about the South he finds there. Yet, he realizes during this year that "you can't go through life not liking people because they didn't have to work as hard or come as far as you did." Bragg seems to have come to terms with his past and present when he receives the Pulitzer Prize. This confirms his worth as a journalist and his mother's success in raising him.

It was at the funeral of his grandmother that Bragg realized the gradual and inexorable ending of the world he grew up in and determined to write this memoir to his mother, while she is still alive to read it. It is a powerful and haunting tribute to her dignity and hard work.

perfect memorialization of a time and place few experienced, May 24, 1998
I am yet another transplanted Alabamian left in awe as I finished this book. I wonder if all the reviews by southerners like me, came from our searching for someone to talk to about this perfect account of a time and place - the 60's and 70's in rural Alabama - that was almost like time had stood still. It was so far removed from the hippies and woodstock, and full of Hank Williams, the Florida Boys, George Wallace, Bear Bryant's football and all of the rest of the very specific terms, brands, species, and local color that Rick Bragg uses in his writing. Like his mother said -"People forgets if it aint wrote down". I feel almost relieved that he has done such an excellent job of bringing that time to life. And since I've read the other reviews I see that I'm not the only one that was moved to tears by the story of the tall blonde woman and all she endured for the benefit of her sons. I wonder if you hadn't actually lived all that is described in the book, if you'd be as impressed with it. I've concluded that yes, you would. You just wouldn't be paralayzed by some memory that flies into your mind every time something like purple hull peas, or spitting on your worm for luck was mentioned. Or Red Eye Gravy and lightnin bugs. And the descriptions of the food, whether it's the food on the grounds at the Baptist church, or the Foot Long Hot Dog at PeeWees Dixie Dip, or the Thanksgiving dinner at his momma's new house, they were all incredible! (not the bologna sandwich on the dead mule,though) This book also gives me some new respect for our age (I'm a half-year younger than Bragg) His stories of "the stories" that he's covered made me realize that we've seen some news, too, in our life times, even if there were no wars or giant disasters (Thank God). It's ok to be going on forty. His determination to make good for his momma is very admirable. This story is not just about the most stuborn and different men on the planet (yes, southern men) but about all men. It was refreshing to read such a sensitive and honest account of what one man was thinking when he did the things he did, especially relating to his own mother. I didn't want this book to end. It was like reading a letter from home. I savored every word of it and ordered my sister her own copy, because I don't want to pass this one on. I know that I will re-read it, at then in parts, almost like it was my Bible. See, he's right, God does hang on like a rusty fish hook in those parts. Even when you've been living in Southern California for eighteen years, the religion they taught you just doesn't go away. I always thought we grew up in a special time, that very few got to experience, but it was hard to describe or explain. This book confirmed it for me. Maybe he's right....there's a price to pay for living in the lovliness of rural Alabama.

The second time I wished there was a 6th star., July 6, 2000
The first time was when I read Mr. Bragg's other book "Somebody Told Me". In that collection of articles he had written I came across the following sentence,

"This is a place where grandmothers hold babies on their laps under the stars and whisper in their ears that the lights in the sky are holes in the floor of heaven."

It is very difficult to say something unique or clever about the way he writes. He would dismiss any suggestion that he "brings" something to a story. Even the professional reviewers have resorted to linking his name with some of the greatest writers who have taken the time to share their craft with us; Melville, Faulkner, and those who brought us "Huck Finn" and "Holden Caulfield", and Mr. Bragg is still a young writer who has scores of books to come.

The only thing this man lacks is pretense, or if you prefer, false pride. Someone said he had "lent dignity" to the people in one of his stories, he felt that comment was wrong and said "All I did was write what was there", and another time, "It wasn't that I had gotten it right-God knows I mess up a lot-but that I had gotten it true".

I believe he writes for the individuals and groups he writes about. We are just the lucky witnesses, the beneficiaries of one man's amazing talent.

Reading cannot get better than this.

A Book for All People, August 23, 2004


I was born and raised in California. I feel no affinity for the South. In fact, I find it culturally foreign. This book is rooted in the South, a memoir written by an Alabama native about growing up dirt poor, and the road to becoming an accomplished reporter, finally attending Harvard and later winning the Pulitzer Prize while working for the New York Times. But in his heart, he never left the South, nor did he ever disown his devoted, toothless "mama". A man exposed to religion and respecting it, he never appropriated it for himself. Yet he exemplified the commandment to honor his mother. (His father is another matter!)

From the very first page this book drew me in. Rick Bragg writes in simple, direct sentences, the unobtrusive words revealing, rather than competing with, the impact of the scene. Instead of writing a mere regional book, he writes a universal book, tying us together by our shared emotions and experiences. He sensitively portrays not northern experiences or southern experiences, but human experiences.

Outstanding, November 27, 1999
I can't tell you how much I appreciate this book. Bragg has taken his life story and experiences and turned them into a testament useful to us all. I can think of nothing more valuable than writing about the experiences, struggles and triumphs of real, everyday folks. And Bragg has done just that. Bragg's honesty and willingness to write openly about his family is much appreciated. In the true spirit of a Southerner, Bragg takes his time to describe his experiences and feelings in a way that is witty and accurate. This book is a must for the individual seeking to find the real, contemporary South with which so many Southerners are familiar. As a Southerner, I feel that Mr. Bragg has accurately described my South--a South free of romantic verandas and mint juleps. The South you speak of is a place of struggle, conviction, defeat and triumph--all in the lives of everyday individuals. In the words of my mother, "you've hit the nail on the head," Mr. Bragg.

A Writer's Writer, August 4, 2004
This book stands as a testament to the power of the word and the power of mothers: both can transform us, saint and sinner alike. While Bragg writes like a demon, his momma loved liked an angel, and this book is his tribute to her. That Bragg can bring us to tears and laughter, sometimes on the same page, is a reading experience no one should miss. This man can write!

I was equally moved by his other memoir, AVA'S MAN. They will be read as long as we care to know the past in poor rural communities, in the South and elsewhere, and as long as we care to witness the emergence of a passion, whether it's writing or painting, practicing dentistry or carpentry.

I have often used sections from Bragg's books to illustrate writing at its finest and most human. Students always get it, and many go on to read Bragg's books. Invariably, they express their admiration. Bragg's appeal is universal because his struggles are universal.

This book and it's author touched me heart and soul., October 30, 1998
I don't often recommend books to others. But when I read All Over But The Shoutin' in the summer of 98, I loaned it to my brother and recommended it to nearly everyone I know. I am buying another copy today because I have to indulge myself a second time. The author, Rick Bragg, tells his painful story of growing up dirt poor in the South. The book is a tribute to his mother, a proud and selfless woman, born to poverty and married to an abusive alcoholic husband. Bragg's poignant telling of his mother's selfless sacrifices on behalf of her boys brought me to tears. It is an unbelievable tale of sacrifice, determination, and finally, success. Bragg doesn't just narate a story, he opens his very self to the reader's scrutiny. His candid telling of the story of his life, of a man much less than perfect, made this reader want to know him better. I live in Florida and wish I'd had the fortune of meeting Rick Bragg when he reported for the St. Pete Times. It would be an honor.

One of my favorite books ever!, June 10, 1998
One of the most engaging books I've ever read, Rick Bragg's poignant and candid memoir brings to life the past and present South through straightforward dialogue, vivid imagery and sensitive storytelling. His descriptive passages of the observances and experiences of his youth, such as "playing the church piano loud was near as important as playing it right" and "fighting bloody battles over girls in the parking lot of the local Hardee's" take me back to incidents from my own past. I especially enjoyed the chronicle of his mother's first trip to New York--everything from the airplane ride to "glass elevators that shoot you heavenward like a crystal bullet" to his mother's own impression: "Now them's some buildin's." Well put! His accounts of Harvard are hilarious: "if you throw up your hand and say 'hey, how you doin,' you'll scare 'em to death or at least into therapy;" and the stories from his colorful career as a reporter are worth reading. I recently heard Rick Bragg speak at the BookExpo in Chicago and he was gracious enough to sign my book afterwards. I now look forward to listening to "All Over But The Shoutin'" on audio cassette. This is a book you'll want to read more than once, like I did. Thank you, Rick, for "dreaming backwards" and making yourself "grit your teeth and remember." And thank your Momma, too, for giving you permission to write it.

WORTH SHOUTIN' ABOUT, February 9, 2000
Inspired writing. Pulitzer Prize winning, New York Times reporter, Rick Bragg, tells the story of growing up "poor white trash" in Alabama. Seldom have I read more compassionate, truthful, heartful words. Mr. Bragg's love for his family, his mother and his country blasts through. Just as truthful is his depiction of the alcoholic father who deserted his family and the crushing effect of their subsequent poverty. Simple. Beautiful. Unforgetable. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Fortified with Yankee ingenuity and western can-do energy, the Moody family, transplanted from New England, builds a new life on a Colorado ranch early in the 20th century. Father has died and Little Britches shoulders the responsibilities of a man at age eleven. Continues the true pioneering adventures as unforgettable as those in Little Britches. Illustrated. ... Read more

Reviews

The Ralph Moody Collection, August 25, 2006

A reviewer asked for help regarding the names and volumes in this series. Here it is...

1. Little Britches
2. Man of the Family
3. The Home Ranch
4. Mary Emma & Company
5. The Fields of Home
6. Shaking the Nickel
7. The Dry Divide
8. Horse of a Different Color

Mr. Moody shares adventures of his life in this series. It's wonderful, but there is some foul language. Therefore, I would recommend reading the books aloud with older children (not for the preschool/early elementary crowd).

Another Top-Notch Autobiographical Work by Ralph Moody, August 13, 1997
The 'Little Britches' series is every bit as exciting, historical, and fascinating as the 'Little House on the Prarie' series, and Moody has even outdone Laura Wilder in his characterization of great American values like hard work, independence, and respect.

Continuing on after the death of father in 'Little Britches', the second book in the series tells how the Moody family pulled together to survive in turn-of-the century Littleton, Colorado. From using stilts to become the best fruit pickers in town, to outsmarting the manager of the finest hotel in Denver, to trading free coal for a Christmas goose, Moody brings the reader right into this frontier family.

My children, ages 4 to 14, all sat in rapt attention as I read from this book, and every chapter was ended with cries of "just one more, Dad, please!"

A family on its own, April 27, 2006
When Ralph Moody's father dies in the early spring of 1910, he's eleven years old, the senior boy in a family of five, and determined to support his mother and siblings. It's a rocky road, for his mother, even though she declares she'll "depend on" him as "her man," is equally determined that he must stay in school--which means he's restricted to nickel-an-hour boy-jobs for most of the year. And so, despite the title, this book is less about Ralph's helming the family than about the family's pulling together to support itself. They start a "cookery route," selling Mrs. Moody's New England food to neighbors; the children pick fruit, and Ralph rides in match races, breeds rabbits, and hires schoolmates with horses to keep the cattle from the incoming trail herds out of the residential lanes, as well as discovering that it's possible to supply the family's entire need for coal simply by picking up what has fallen off the tenders of passing trains. Like his father before him, he proves to be a shrewd trader and a clever inventor who comes up with a device on which to dry and repair the lace curtains from Denver's Brown Palace Hotel when his mother gets the idea of offering her services as a contract launderer. And he and his brothers and sisters get a surprise when, six months after their father's death, their mother has a sixth baby.

Besides Mary Emma Moody, who stands solidly in the midst of her young family and exemplifies the best type of "widder woman," the two most unforgettable characters in the book are Sheriff McGrath, a widower who tries awkwardly to court Ralph's mother, and Jerry McEnerney, the Irish section boss who, for all his early bluster, soon becomes the boy's friend and quietly arranges for him to obtain over 100 used railroad ties to haul away and sell. And though there are setbacks and mishaps, such as the vividly described spillage of an entire wagonload of cookery, the Moodys soldier on, until it begins to look as if they will be able to stay indefinitely in Ralph's beloved Colorado. But then Mary Emma incautiously shares a secret with a neighbor, and is subpoenaed to testify before the Grand Jury. Fearing that she will end by sending an innocent man to the gallows, she decides there is only one thing to do: take her children and secretly flee out of state to live with her brother in New England. And so one phase of Ralph's life ends and another begins, to be told in subsequent books. But the West will call him back, and he will never be fully free of its spell.

This is a funny, warmhearted, inspiring tale of a family determined to make its way without seeking charity, of its friends and neighbors, and of the beautiful land it loves. It would make a splendid family readaloud, or a good book to curl up with alone if you love stories of the West and of people who don't give up.

Reading the Series, November 2, 2004
Hooked by Little Britches, I am now reading the entire series. Although both Little Britches and Man of the Family are simply and unsentimentally written about the everyday dramas of a boy growing up in Colorado at the turn of the century, they surprised me by leaving me with a lump in my throat and anxious to read the next the installment in Mr. Moody's life. A good read and one that young people would enjoy and benefit from.

Great Biography Series, April 17, 2006
This is a great true story for ages 6-105. A little bit of cowboy language but going to the park is far worse. Action, adventure, joy, hardship, love of family & friends,... it's all there. Very eye opening. I'm so glad audio versions are coming out so we can enjoy them together on long car trips or when sick in bed. Worth the money.

Great family book, September 23, 2005
Ralph Moody wrote stories of his own experiences that kept you interested with each paragraph wondering what was going to happen next. The stories are good, down-to-earth christian family entertainment.

man of the family, April 12, 2009
It took me awhile to finish it but I love love loved all the parts with horses and other animals. This was a great book but it had the most awful ending I've ever read. It reminded me of the little house on the prarie books. Funny, interesting and sometimes miserable or sad.
I would have adored this book if the ending had been something else. Dont continue reading if you havent read it yet.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ralph moves from Coloradoe to BOSTON!!!!!! THe city!!!!! It broke my heart, hurt my head and dissapointed me sooooo much. I didnt need a happy go lucky ending, but that was the worst. He has to leave the horses, rabbits, cow and all his friends and everyone and most of all beautiful coloradoe for,.....boston? and it;s all his mother's fault. she tells some secret or something and ruins the whole end of the book. i guess it's just being realistic but still......

I dont know the correct order?, April 3, 2006
I LOVED the first book Little Britches it was a wonderul book, but now i want to read the secound book and i dont know the right order to read them in. Can anyone help me?

My review by Josh, October 15, 2004
Moody, Ralph. Man of the Family.
Norton: New York, 1951.

As soon as I started reading Man of the Family, I liked it because it takes you to the past.
One of the best things it does is creates good characters. Therefore you hate them, like them, but either way through that, you can make good connections. Also, what I really like is the dialog. The dialog is good because the characters talk different from us now and its fun to read with that in it. The book is never boring because of the realism in it. Your always asking what is going to happen, will the Moodys make enough money? Are they going to die? Its stuff like that that makes it interesting.
With the characters, dialog, and realism, Ralph Moody wrote a interesting book about himself in the past.
... Read more

Editorial Review

When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people.Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears.In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period–people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards.

Laced with fine storytelling, sharp wit, dead-on observations, and moments of sheer joy, Haven Kimmel's straight-shooting portrait of her childhood gives us a heroine who is wonderfully sweet and sly as she navigates the quirky adult world that surrounds Zippy. ... Read more

Reviews

Utterly beguiling and wonderful. Deeper than it appears, December 12, 2003
This book is proof that each of us has plenty of material in our `ordinary' lives to use as material for writing a memoir. What most of us DON'T have, however, if Haven Kimmel's ability to write so well that what was really a very simple small-town childhood can be elevated to a 280-page book that utterly captivates. Kimmel achieves what many others have attempted to do and failed: she writes entirely from the child's voice without losing her audience, without becoming cloying, without making us want to smack her and say `get on with it.' By turns wickedly witty, humorous, poignant, sweet, heart-wrenching, wise, A Girl Named Zippy is simply one of the best books I've read this year, a poem to a happy childhood.
I resisted it for over a year, fearing it was going to be a sappy, feel-good story. Wrong. It's utterly original, utterly uplifting, utterly hilarious, utterly wonderful. Do NOT fail to read this book.

One of the best memoirs ever..., November 20, 2002
I just read the last page in A Girl Named Zippy, and now I'm at a loss. I want Zippy back! Normally, I'm not a fan of memoirs or non-fiction in general, but I had heard nothing but praise about this book. Thankfully I listened...

Haven Kimmel, or Zippy as she's come to be known due to the fact she used to zip around the house as a toddler, has opened her life to us. The laughter begins on page 2 when Zippy's sister comments on the type of people who would be willing to read a book about life in teeny Mooreland, Indiana. Well, count me in! Reading this book was such pure, emphatic joy. Zippy reminds me a bit of a female Dennis the Menace -- little bit of a pest, but sweet, mostly innocent, and a lot curious. The stories inside are told with a poignant tone, a wistfullness for the days when life was simple, despite how big it all seemed when you were only 3-feet-tall.

A happy childhood -- a breath of fresh air if you ask me. Stories like this make me grateful I grew up in a small town, and that if I thought hard enough I could come up with some stories of my own. A Girl Named Zippy has something for everybody, and a book that I will forever hold in high regard. Wonderful!

One of the funniest books I've ever read!, June 11, 2001
A friend of mine opens to any page of "Bridget Jones' Diary" when she needs a laugh, but I prefer to do this with "A Girl Named Zippy." For anyone who grew up in a small town, Haven Kimmel's hilarious memoir is bound to strike a chord and elicit a grin. The stories of her father maniacally packing their camper to bursting for camping trips, his imaginative tormenting of their dog-hating neighbors, and the young Zippy giving haircuts to hippies in exchange for a dog had me in stitches! Aside from being a gifted storyteller, Haven is also a talented writer; her vivid descriptions and characterizations make this book read like a novel or short story collection. As I read this book, I couldn't help but think that if Scout of "To Kill a Mockingbird" had been a real girl, she would've grown up to write a memoir a lot like "A Girl Named Zippy." For anyone who wants to read a book that will make you laugh out loud and also give you a glimpse of an American life in simpler times--when a vacation either meant going out of town to visit relatives or taking a camping trip with your family--this is the book for you. Thanks for bringing back so many fond memories of my own rural Maryland upbringing, Haven!

A lot of fun to read!, January 8, 2005
A GIRL NAMED ZIPPY by Haven Kimmel
January 8, 2005

One of my favorite books read in 2004 was this one, A GIRL NAMED ZIPPY by Haven Kimmel. I'm not one to read memoirs, but the front cover caught my eye. The photo of this nearly bald headed little girl in a ruffled blue dress and huge eyes and big ears was something that I couldn't walk away from. And with enough recommendations from other readers, I finally picked up the book at the end of 2004.

Zippy was the nickname of Haven Kimmel, because of the way she used to zip around the room. The book is told from her point of view, but through her eyes as a young precocious girl. We see things as they happened years ago, starting from how she thinks (in her humorous way) her mother and the rest of her family saw her. One of the funniest sections of this memoir was Zippy recalling her mother's journal and writing about Zippy, and the fact that she hadn't spoken a word until the age of three. When Zippy finally spoke her first words and they were "I'll make a deal with you", spoken to her father, her mother's journal entry was "Now that we know she can talk, all I can say is `dear God. Please give that child some hair. Amen'". There were lines like this and many more that had me laughing out loud as I read.

A GIRL NAMED ZIPPY is told in little vignettes, and goes back and forth in time. The reader is reliving Kimmel's childhood through flashes of memory, one leading into another, and not necessarily in chronological order. Although this style doesn't always work, I felt it was perfect for this book. The short chapters made this book a fast read. Each succeeding chapter added a little bit more to the memories of Kimmel's childhood, giving the reader an idea of what her life must have been like in the late 60's and early 70's growing up in that small town of Mooreland, Indiana. It is a town in which (her sister claims) no one sane would have any interest in hearing about, but obviously Melinda was wrong. Kimmel did write that book about their small town lives in Mooreland, and it was interesting enough to get published. I would love to read a sequel, and see what other escapades our dear little Zippy got herself into.

Zippy is a "must read" for women in the Heartland, October 20, 2001
Haven Kimmel has somehow remembered the small details of growing up in Indiana that had long ago faded from my memory. I laughed out loud more than once, what a funny, wonderful read!!! My sisters are reading it now and also loving it. I especially love the finale Christmas in the book. Through the Christmas story, the true nature of midwestern life and values are spoken. Thank you, Haven ... and your sister was wrong. I chose your book even though there were many other non-pork related books on the shelf!!!

Kylie's thoughs on Zippy, April 5, 2004
Do you remember what it is like to be a child? The crazy thoughts and assumptions that ran through your head? A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland Indiana, by Haven Kimmel, has exactly what it takes to remind you of your carefree days of being a kid.

With no specific storyline, Kimmel uses pieces of her childhood from the 1960's and 70's to entertain her audience. She vividly describes what it is like to grow up living in the small Indiana town of Mooreland. Throughout the story, many of the townspeople are introduced. The humorous memories take you from Zippy's early childhood into her teenage years. The book reminds you what it is like to be a kid and the never-ending difficulties of growing up.

Zippy is by far the most enjoyable book I have ever read. Kimmel's excerpts are laugh-out-loud funny. She does a great job of painting a picture to make you feel you like you are one of the crazy Mooreland people. Zippy is the perfect book to curl up to on a rainy day. This book is for people of all ages who don't mind a good laugh. I most definitely recommend this book to anyone, because I know they will enjoy it.

I absolutely LOVE this book, August 9, 2004
This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. I am a big fan of the 'memoir' genre, and this one was great. I find regular people a lot more interesting than celebrities (who really cares about Anne Heche or Pamela Anderson? Really?)and this book was charming and somewhat whimsical. Unconcerned with time-lines, which don't really matter in this book, she seems to write it as she remembers it--it was like having a conversation about childhood with someone, complete with a few small exaggerations. I would recommend this book to everyone!

One of the best (of the many) books I've read this year!, December 7, 2002
I was quite surprised to read two negative reviews (among all the glowing ones) of this charming and delightful book. I think those reviewers totally missed the point, because they couldn't find the truth in Zippy's story. Zippy is a very imaginative child, prone to exaggeration and flights of fancy. These are qualities she clearly inherited from her parents.

We'll never know if the "wicked" old neighbor lady really wanted to kill her; but, Zippy was convinced, and therefore terrorized by this woman. It was Zippy's reality. Who among us hasn't conjured up imaginary demons, scary neighbors and spooky houses when we were children?

I have never before read a book that so accurately captured a child's imagination, emotions and reactions to the characters and situations that made her life uniquely hers.

One reviewer commented that there was no way that the author could remember the events of her childhood with such clarity and detail. Well, let me assure this reviewer that my brother reminds me regularly all of the horrible and just plain stupid things that I did when we were growing up. How much he actually remembers and how much he has invented is not for me to say. I do know that he seems to possess an amazing faculty for recalling the events of our childhood and beyond. Just because I can't, doesn't mean he's lying, does it? Maybe. But who cares? It is the essence of the experience that is being related.

Having grown up in the 'very, very big' town of Muncie that was 'so very far away' I absolutely and positively could relate to every event in this book. By the way, in the name of truth, Muncie is a 30 to 40 minute drive from Mooreland (depending upon whom you are following), which to a young child IS a long, long way. Muncie is a small town by most standards, but NOT if you are from Mooreland.

I was so taken by this book that I drove to Mooreland one day to see Zippy's house, the church, and so on. Kimmel's description of Mooreland is dead-on, even more than 30 years later.

I loved the story of how Zippy's father handled the threat from the neighbors to poison the family dogs. Anyone who grew up around here can see that happening, believe me. Hoosiers have a very bizarre sense of humor, love to make a point and don't take kindly to being threatened. This book captures those attitudes like no book I've ever read.

Another golden moment in the book is when the older sister tells Zippy that she is adopted. The way the kooky parents handle this is absolutely hysterical. Zippy's reaction is unexpected and priceless.

Zippy's struggles with religious issues are beautifully conveyed. This sensitive subject is handled with just the right balance of reverence and independent thinking to make anyone appreciate how Zippy relates to the conflicts and contrasts within her home and her community regarding spiritual issues. Kimmel puts a child's spin on an issue many adults are still debating, and she does it beautifully.

I recently bought several copies of this book to give as gifts to people whom I know can relate and will appreciate this story. One copy, I am sending to a new friend as a way of explaining the occasionally twisted, but decidedly Hoosier, way of seeing things. I just hope Haven will give us a sequel. Meanwhile, I'll have to read this book again and again.

What a brilliant accomplishment by a new author. Bravo!

A Girl Named Zippy, August 17, 2006
The cover photo of an alert non-Gerber baby. An old family photo topping each chapter. These help set a whimsical tone skillfully followed through with words only a mother could love. From tufted-head to stubbed-toe, this book celebrates the spunk of youth with countless recalls of which our inner tot can relate.
We could long for a Dad like hers--who loved his third child enough to casually coin her Zippy. Through her eyes, this family doesn't take itself too seriously.
How Zippy organizes and rationalizes daily undertakings is felt as youthful, reads as youthful. The flightiness of friendships, unnerving nature of neighbors and natural distancing from parents are all taken in stride and delicately expressed. She's a child with shameless pride in plainness. Any precociousness is thankfully not odious. This folk-child character seems too clever to be actual, too enlightened to be real, but we're more than happy to play along.
The book's subtle intrigue--all well told with a perception that belies its na�ve charm. Haven Kimmel has pulled off some retro-realism with finesse. A delightful and amusing read.

Am I missing something? I didn't see much humor here..., October 7, 2002
My aunt and mother asked me to read this to see what I thought. It was billed as a thoughtful, hilarious memoir of a girl growing up in a small mid-western town. Sounded good to me. However, what I found were a few chuckles, some very good writing, but mostly I was taken with the sadness of her story. Her father gambled away her mother's wedding rings. Her mother was depressed and spent all her time reading sci-fi and convincing her she was adopted (cruel). Her neighbors were creeps that threatened to kill her pets. Her friend and her mother had to flee in the middle of the night from an abusive husband and father. Graphic detail of animals being killed, butchered, dying and rotting under houses, etc. All I know is that if this is what people are describing as a funny, heartwarming childhood memoir, I'm sorry for us all. It was nicely written and I'd love to see her try again, but this just wasn't my cup of tea. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

Insightful, Beautiful, October 10, 2010
I tried to read this book slowly. I did not want it to end. I put off reading the last ten pages for a week or so. I was in denial, hoping I could hang on just a little longer, hoping I had more time with this book. A theme so perfect after I actually finished the book. A mutual feeling, this hanging on, I think, shared with the author.
I learned so much about Lithuanian culture, something I hadn't given much though to, but fell in love with while reading. This book is so sweet, dedicated to her mother, who Daiva paints a beautiful picture of. Although I am not Lithuanian, I thank you for writing this, documenting your heritage. This book seems very important to me.

"My Big Fat Greek Wedding", Lithuanian version, September 24, 2010
Chicago area residents with parents who immigrated to the "City of Big Shoulders" from Eastern Europe after WWII will recognize scenes from their family's immigrant community lives. Wry humour, a touch of sadness and exquisite detail allow the reader to slip between time periods and experience the clash of cultures overlaid by the chaos of adolescence and the sometimes perilous journey to adulthood. Happy, sad, glad, angry, questioning, highs, lows - the roller coaster of emotions and situations life throws at one are all found within this little volume. "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", Lithuanian version. A wonderful memoir which can be enjoyed in one sitting or savored, a bit at a time, as one takes one's own trip down memory lane.

Memoir Readers: Don't Miss This One, September 19, 2010
White Field, Black Sheep is the finely written and engaging story of a girl growing up in Chicago as the child of Lithuanian emigres, and of a woman coming to understand herself, her heritage, and her place in the world. It's an account of the author's loving relationship with her parents, especially her mother, whose battle with cancer forms the present-day narrative of the memoir. Along with fascinating insights into Lithuanian culture, Markelis gives the reader a vivid picture of life in Cicero in the 1960's and 1970's. Despite some heartbreaking moments, her story is ultimately optimistic and often laugh-out-loud funny.

The book itself is beautifully produced and illustrated with photographs of Chicago and the author's childhood.

In short, White Field, Black Sheep has everything that is best about memoirs.

Warm and sensitive at times, thought provoking and disturbing at others., October 28, 2010
Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Lithuanian refugees, there was much about the early part of the book that warmed my heart. In fact I often considered the Chicago area (where the author grew up) a "sister city" to my native Detroit. I too attended Lithuanian Saturday school for many years studying the Lithuanian language, writing "diktantas" (dictation) on the blackboard, learning to conjugate verbs in their proper tenses (as well as the declension of nouns), trying to lose my "American" accent while speaking Lithuanian, learning Lithuanian folk songs and dancing Lithuanian dances. Like the author I was a member of the Lithuanian Girl Scouts, went to summer camp enjoying camp fires at night singing Lithuanian songs and participating in other meaningful activities during the day. I would bristle when insensitive non ethnic Americans would call us "Communists" when Lithuania had been occupied by force and had no desire to have some other country sitting on our land dictating to us how to run our affairs. To this day I have to defend the reason why I did not change my name when I married. I am only grateful that today at least I do not have to give most Americans "geography" lessons as to where Lithuania is located! So, the author's recollections of her growing up in a Lithuanian home, much like my own, will remain for me a cherished part of her book.

What I had trouble with seemed to come in the second half of the book when the author (at least to me) seemed less than proud of being Lithuanian. I admire her courage in admitting to having a problem with alcohol. Sadly, there are many in the world that do. It just that it seems the author appears to be strongly hinting that the reason she did was because she was Lithuanian. While I have been made aware that tragically the Lithuanian people have the highest suicide rate in Europe, I would also maintain that they have no more or no less problems with alcohol than any other culture in Europe (or the United States for that matter). I am just afraid that such a depiction would give non Lithuanians the wrong impression about Lithuania being a country where there is especially high alcoholism. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Still there is much I like about this book. I am not aware of any other American born Lithuanian who has so well documented their growing up in Lithuanian home. In that aspect it is very unique. I for one will always treasure that I grew up in such a culturally rich environment. The author's book reminds me. She also very tenderly shares her pain at the passing of her parents. I lost my father, a very proud Lithuanian-American, friendly, warm and gregarious, born in a city known for embodying these very qualities (Kaunas, Lithuania) over three years ago on August 12, 2007. His loss was very painful and remains so to this day. Again the author reminds me. Her ability to get me in touch with deep felt feelings is profound.

I believe this book is truly a worthwhile read and would highly recommend the reading of it especially to all the American born children of parents born and raised in the beautiful country of Lithuania.

I WISH IT WAS LONGER, October 6, 2010
What a fine book -- funny, heartwarming, delightful and, yes, it's true, I shed a tear at the end. In short, I loved it. And after I finished it, I wish I was still reading it, I think of parts of it, I miss it.

true, funny and elegaic, September 21, 2010
Just finished reading Daiva Markelis memoir in one sitting. I am a "ciceronian" who grew up in the same area and ethnic environment as the author and can vouchsafe that every word of her luminous and entertaining account of the Lithuanian community life is true in both the tragic and comic view. She paints a vivid portrait of the flavor of growing up in the hothouse of a politically and religiously intense ethnic "village". Her personal story in this landscape stands out with the bold relief of a spotlight lighting the stage where the author plays all the parts: the actor, the director and the bemused audience. In the end, I cried at the last chapter as she envisioned the return of her mother's soul in winter from a baltic coastline to abide in her oak tree, as Lithuanian mythology enwraps and illuminates a life. It a not a heavy read, but rather one that touches with elegaic elegance on the topics of deep sorrow and while the heart might be crying the mind is laughing at the irony and quirkiness of it all. buy it, read it, enjoy and learn all about Arvid Time and how a DP become a Teepee ! ... Read more

Editorial Review

From the coauthor of the million-copy bestseller The Last Lecture comes a moving tribute to female friendships, with the inspiring story of eleven girls and the ten women they became.

Meet the Ames Girls: eleven childhood friends who formed a special bond growing up in Ames, Iowa.As young women, they moved to eight different states, yet managed to maintain an enduring friendship that would carry them through college and careers, marriage and motherhood, dating and divorce, a child's illness and the mysterious death of one member of their group.Capturing their remarkable story, The Girls from Ames is a testament to the deep bonds of women as they experience life's joys and challenges -- and the power of friendship to triumph over heartbreak and unexpected tragedy.

The girls, now in their forties, have a lifetime of memories in common, some evocative of their generation and some that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend.Photograph by photograph, recollection by recollection, occasionally with tears and often with great laughter, their sweeping and moving story is shared by Jeffrey Zaslow, Wall Street Journal columnist, as he attempts to define the matchless bonds of female friendship.It demonstrates how close female relationships can shape every aspect of women's lives - their sense of themselves, their choice of men, their need for validation, their relationships with their mothers, their dreams for their daughters - and reveals how such friendships thrive, rewarding those who have committed to them.

The Girls from Ames is the story of a group of ordinary women who built an extraordinary friendship.With both universal insights and deeply personal moments, it is a book that every woman will relate to and be inspired by. ... Read more

Reviews

40 years of friendship, March 10, 2009

A Book I Really Wanted to Like, March 30, 2009

A story bigger and better than the book, April 30, 2009
When I heard the author and two of the subjects on NPR I immediately bought a copy, wondering if I would know any of the "girls." I was living and working in Ames in 1981 when their class graduated from Ames High, and sure enough, I immediately recognized one of the main characters, and had connections with the families of others. Reading the book was much like the odd dislocation that Walker Percy describes in The Moviegoer when surprised by a scene on screen that is familiar in real life. That said, Zaslow is a columnist and this is a story that needs the skills of a novelist. You can't build character by simply piling on anecdotes, and he is hampered by a lack of source material (and by an inexcusable lack of research--no evidence that he visited their old haunts or even read their yearbook), an inability to recreate a sense of place or time, what appears to be cursory interviews with a broad number of sources, and his core experience, a reunion with the main subjects in North Carolina, where there is no connection with their common roots. While the cast is not exactly War and Peace, it is difficult to keep the characters straight, an experience not aided by the author's determination to use just first names. Was Kelly the feisty one or the sassy one--no that was Cathy, or was it Karen or Karla? The fuzzy pics on the cheesy paper used in the original edition are not a plus. You do learn a bit -- who knew that Brad Pitt was "a pleasant-but-not-especially attractive journalism major at the University of Missouri"? Or that Hollywood hair dressers have a code of not gossiping about their clients--except when someone is writing a book about the friendships of 11 Iowa girls and apparently needs to spice up the flagging narration with a flurry of name dropping. This is not to take away anything from the 11 original friends or their admirably deep and lengthy friendships, but if you're looking for an equally deep explanation of such relationships, you'll not find it here.

Uninspired telling, June 6, 2009
In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't (or should I say couldn't?) read past Chapter 3. But I feel it's okay to write this as the problem isn't in the story but how the story is told. Many good authors have written fantastic books about everyday people and events. Unfortunately, this is not the case for the Girls from Ames.

This book was recommended by a salesclerk who kept talking about how much both she and her mother could relate to it. Reading through the introduction, I was already anticipating that this was a book that I too would want to share with family and friends.

I couldn't wait to read it...then just as quickly, I couldn't wait to put it down. This book simply doesn't deliver what it promises. There are no bonds formed with the reader. Tears and laughter aren't shared but words on a page. The writing is almost clinical and the factual telling doesn't bring to life what makes ordinary friendships so special.

In the introduction, the author spends some time justifying his ability to tell this story despite being male. He goes on to explain his understanding of women. In hindsight, it should've been a BIG warning. While I don't know the author, I can say that his writing does not support his claims.

The Girls from Ames may have something that is special but the author completely fails in capturing the magic of their friendship.

Wow, this is boring., June 25, 2009
Like other reviewers, I wanted to like this book and was excited to read it. My excitement quickly waned. I can usually tell if I will like a book by the first chapter and if I don't that's fine, and I stop reading and move on to something more interesting. I usually always finish a book but I could not get past the half way mark in this one, even though I really, really tried.

This book is awfully dull. From the cover and the hype, you would expect to fall in love with these characters, become something of "friends" with them yourself and have all of the great attributes of female friendships reconfirmed. I read the preaface and was even more excited to have these concepts driven home with expert writing by a male author. I was rooting for him to beat the odds and successfully accomplish this daunting task. He failed. I am sure the real Ames girls are lovely and have had exciting lives and accomplishments but wow, did they ever seem boring. I stopped reading the book after the segment about the girl who passed away (Sheila, If I am recalling correctly...). How could such a climatic experience be so blandy told? I couldn't bear any more of the like and returned the book to the library.

Engrossing read, April 20, 2009

Girls from Ames, June 22, 2009
Truly one of the poorest written books I have read in 20 years. I, too, am from Iowa and have a group of high school girlfriends who still keep in touch, meeting in one state or another every couple of years. Thus my interest in the book. Regrettably, however, I found it to be a dull and boring account, written in an almost documentary style with no humor, no thread, no theme, no "story," and not even any kind of conclusion. My kudos for this group of women, however, for keeping up their friendship and for the support they provide to one another. That is not a little thing in this hectic world we live in.

I though I could identify, June 2, 2009
I wanted to read the book because I have had friendships for over 40 years and also graduated high school at the same time. I found some circumstances similar to my friendships, but, perhaps they would be differently portrayed if it was a female author.
I also thought that the book dragged on at times, and repeated itself. The story could have been told in less words with more emphasis.
I'm not sure if Zaslow told it from the heart, or just had a profit on the backburner as he told the story. I found it unbelievable that he is really interested in women's friendships.

Okay but not great . . ., June 26, 2009
I bought this book thinking it would be a good summer read but was disappointed overall. Yes, it is a story of friendship that has spanned decades but I can't find anything unique or greatly interesting about these womens' lives that I can't find at a neighborhood coffee morning.

While I agree that childhood friendships are very precious, I just didn't see the difference between these women and so many others I know.

It was also hard to keep everyone's stories straight because of the large number of characters involved and the similarities of their stories.

dukk, June 21, 2009
I found this book interesting at first, however the story of these women was no different than that of women in the 40s all over the country. They were uninspiring and not very complex. Certainly not anyone I would seek out as a friend. I envied their friendship but did not care a lick about what happened to them in the end. Stopped reading with about 50 pages to go. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Now available in paperback, the entrancing story of how one woman's journey of self-discovery gave her the courage to persevere in re-creating her life.

Life is a work in progress, as ever-changing as a sandy shoreline along the beach. During the years Joan Anderson was a loving wife and supportive mother, she had slowly and unconsciously replaced her own dreams with the needs of her family. With her sons grown, however, she realized that the family no longer centered on the home she provided, and her relationship with her husband had become stagnant. Like many women in her situation, Joan realized that she had neglected to nurture herself and, worse, to envision fulfilling goals for her future. As her husband received a wonderful job opportunity out-of-state, it seemed that the best part of her own life was finished. Shocking both of them, she refused to follow him to his new job and decided to retreat to a family cottage on Cape Cod.
At first casting about for direction, Joan soon began to take plea-sure in her surroundings and call on resources she didn't realize she had. Over the course of a year, she gradually discovered that her life as an "unfinished woman" was full of possibilities. Out of that magical, difficult, transformative year came A Year by the Sea, a record of her experiences and a treasury of wisdom for readers.
This year of self-discovery brought about extraordinary changes in the author's life. The steps that Joan took to revitalize herself and rediscover her potential have helped thousands of woman reveal and release untapped resources within themselves.
... Read more

Reviews

Life Changing for a 29 year old too!, November 27, 2000
I checked this book out from the library after seeing Joan Anderson on Oprah. I read it in a day and a half saving the ending for that second day because I was so moved. I went out the next day and bought a copy for myself so I could highlight. I then bought 15 more for a total of 16 to give as a gift to every woman I knew from 17 to 76 years old. I then read it again. I then tracked Joan Anderson herself down and flew to Cape Cod to meet her for my 30th birthday by myself. No girlfriends, siblings, or husband. You do not have to be wealthy to do this, I'm certainly not. I went myself for my own week by the sea and again met this magical woman. I've never had such an experience in my life and probably never will. Buy the book - buy many and give them to everyone you know. I was 29 when I read it and found myself becoming the author in a few years time. What a blessed woman, what a blessed place, what a blessed book. Amazing.

Pilgrimage to personhood invites readers along., July 7, 1999
It is a rare gift to find a soul mate between the pages of a wonderful book. Joan Anderson's style is liquid gold. I was awash in salt air and alternately displaced to Cape Cod and the isle of Roan Inish (my all-time favorite movie). The seals were a fantastic metaphor. Joan's personal pilgrimage is the dream of every woman of her generation who hopes her loved ones will discover her on her own terms. Every woman of a certain age will identify with this story for her own reason. I am also a writer who moved to Cape Cod to complete a womens novel. The outcome and motives are the same; mine is a different story. Anderson will find herself swamped with those of us who want to be her friend, neighbor or confidante. Most of us facing a coming-of-middle-age lack the courage to risk everything. She tackles her pilgrimage with strength and a marvelous sense of humor and emerges a winner in every sense. It was a pleasure to spend time with Joan Anderson. A Year by the Shore is one of those books I raced through, only to find I was sad when I finished it. I was on page 100 before I realized that my feet were cold. I grabbed a cup of tea and some socks and continued reading, saving the last 20 pages so I could savor them in the morning. This book is the perfect gift for many friends of all ages

A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman, August 22, 2000
I bought this book on a Saturday afternoon and finished by by Sunday morning.

This is a great little book for any woman who wonders about who they are, and where are they going from here. Are we just going in circles, are we still playful, do we love ourselves, do we love life?

This book shares the authors thoughts of what happened to her over the time period of one year, alone, all alone in a small family cottage by the sea.

If you want to be inspired to think of yourself first so you have something to give to others this is the book for you.

You Have to Like the Genre, July 18, 2006
Before I begin this review, let me state that I have experienced most of the life changes that Joan Anderson describes in her book: from getting older to empty-nesting to (in my case) a divorce to wondering who and what I am. So I am not unsympathetic to any woman's struggle with the above.

That having been said, I almost died of boredom reading this book, and it took me weeks (during which I did not write this review) to figure out why. It is certainly sensitively and well written, and there are some lines that are well worth quoting and remembering. And it is obviously a sensitive and true story of one woman's self-discovery. So why, then, did I find it so terribly banal?

I have finally come to the conclusion that, as personal and deeply meaninfgul as these self-discoveries are, they are of interest and meaning only to the women experiencing them. I simply have no patience. I would love to commune with seals in the wild, I love the ocean, I would ADORE a beach house in the middle of nowhere, but I don't want to hear about it. And I wouldn't want to share whatever I was or was not thinking about my own deep self at any moment in time, no matter how momentous.

I know this is going to be an unpopular review, but it contains as much honesty as I can muster. Of course I can relate to many experiences described in the book--I just don't feel the need to do so. Therefore, if this kind of book is what you like and need, this is probably one of the best of the genre. If not, I would skip it.

males and females, open your hearts and your senses to life, November 22, 1999
I recently attended a storytelling evening given by the Marion Foundation with author Joan Anderson. I had no intention of purchasing Joan's book, but came away with such enthusiasm that I did indeed purchase her book, A Year by the Sea... When I opened the book a few days later, I devoted the entire day to completing it...I see this book as a wake up call to males and females to open your hearts and senses to life and its wonders. I could identify with Joan as she speaks about taking risks, laughing at oneself, really looking at nature and taking time for oneself! Life can be exciting and fulfilling when we take time to wonder at the world around us. These are the messages I came away with; I see her book not necessarily about her relationship with her husband, but with herself. I want to pass these messages along to my mother who needs to look around her at the wonders of life, to laugh, to take risks and to love herself.

Reader from Central PA, November 18, 2000
Not usually a non-fiction reader, I was struck by the title and description at the book store, bought it, and couldn't put it down. It was amazing to identify with so many "after the children are raised" feelings as well as have my life long drawings to nature validated. Its been a very long time since I've been so mesmerized by an author, so immersed in her bravery to face new experiences and in awe of her ability to share her most intimate thoughts with others. I feel like I know her, but I want to know her more, much more. This book needs to be shared.

A complete waste of time, August 26, 2007
I had to read this book for my book-club. Thank goodness I was able to get it from the library and didn't have to buy it.
The book was tiresome, tedious, narcisisstic and at times, frankly unbelievable. The first conversation with Joan Erikson reads as if scripted for a made-for-TV movie. Joan, "It's about action and touch" she says , as if she knows. "That's where the wisdom is - in the senses - stepping out on a gray day, daring to be different. There's no-one as foolish as us right now. Thank goodness! We can be in a fog all by ourselves! I love the grayness of it. The mist sort of wraps itself around our thoughts, so they can take hold".

Give me a break.

As another reviewer wrote, Anderson insists on dragging in metaphors and hitting us over the head with them. The seals, the fox, the trickling sand - enough already.
As to the reason she went on her sabbatical - it appears she married someone so radically opposite her in many respects, she maybe would have been happier with another man. The fact that she raised two sons who are happliy married themselves is maybe a testament to her husband more than her - she mentions that they are always happy in his company. "Their affection for him is more readily apparent than their feelings for me".

Hmm - I wonder why?

STOP THE WORLD and take this one in!, July 10, 2002
I loved this book. So much of what Joan wrote that she thought and felt.....so much of how she viewed certain things, I relate to. This book is NOT just for older, married women with children. I am only 34, not married and have no children and Joan's words still awaken my yearning for freedom that she experienced. She is a brave heart. She told of the easy flowing good things and her battles with difficult times...with money and relationships and feelings of sexual desire and aloneness. This story is real. This woman is real and her story is one to be savored every step of the way. Thank you for sharing your experience, Joan. I hope the women who read it find strength and courage to explore deeper realms of their lives just like Joan did. It has certainly stimulated a passion in my life that I buried long ago and now feel ready to touch and feel.
Can't wait to read An Unfinished Marriage. Good luck, Joan. Keep them coming!

Banality, Self-absorption & Narcissism in a thousand metaphors., July 9, 2006
I read this memoir in one evening, not because it is gripping (it is not) but because it is short. I found myself praying that the shallow insights, endless banal metaphors, and self-absorbed ramblings of a privileged and narcissistic woman would finally lead to some useful insights. Perhaps, I thought, the author will be magically transformed into someone with whom I could actually enjoy spending an hour. I was disappointed.

Joan Anderson writes of her own "journey of self-discovery." She comes off as a whiny wealthy woman who has spent her adult life gazing at her reflection in her husband, her sons, her work, and her friends. At the age of fifty, she does not like what she sees, or perhaps she simply doesn't want to recognize herself any longer. She escapes to her second home on Cape Cod for a year to indulge herself and make herself the center of her world - with no petty distractions such as family, friends, community, or responsibilities. In every person, task, tide, seashell, snowfall, seal, and grain of sand Anderson comes across, she again seeks (and finds) her reflection. She spends this year creating metaphors for herself. (I think I counted five on one page!) and smugly congratulating herself for her now open and conscious self-absorption. By the end of the year, she likes what she sees--so much so that she now offers workshops to help other women discover themselves.

Many women have found this to be a life-changing book. I was not one of them. Perhaps I just could not identify with Anderson, and I guess I'm a little relieved by this.

As the Kirkus review concludes, "A less-than-enthralling journey of self-discovery marred by more than a touch of self-congratulation."

Pass on this one.

Buoyant and beautiful, January 22, 2002
This is an autobiographical account of the author taking a sabbatical from her marriage - something rarely heard of, even in this beentheredonethat day and age. Along the way she encounters storms, work, friendship, dearly departings and experiences with nature. As I read her book, I couldn't help but see how these things were real-time metaphors for the things encountered in a marriage. There are times of joy, loss, sadness, spiritual encouragers, hopelessness, friends who come alongside, and happiness regained.

In a day where marriages are tossed overboard like fish gone bad, Anderson deserves kudos for being honest with her feelings, while trying to paddle back to her husband. Though this is a marvelous read, the silent hero in this book is her husband. It takes a trusting man to give his wife 365 days in which to find herself, not knowing what her decision will be until the year is up.

Anderson talent for creating word pictures, whether about the sea, dolphins or slopping fish, the reader is there with her rubbing off the sea salt. In one poignant scene, Anderson and her ninety-something friend are at work on handheld looms. Her friend says about mixing the colored threads, "You must look more carefully at what it means when one color meets another to see how many strengths you have to work with and lean on." Anderson goes on to say, "...I am beginning to see that every thread is significant." I found myself examining my friendships, and recognizing each one's significance in my life and how we equip each other to continue on our own journeys.

Weave yourself into Anderson's words; you won't want to miss the pleasure of her company. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Enormously visceral, emotionally gripping, and imbued with the belief that justice is possible even after the most horrific of crimes, Alice Sebold's compelling memoir of her rape at the age of eighteen is a story that takes hold of you and won't let go.

Sebold fulfills a promise that she made to herself in the very tunnel where she was raped: someday she would write a book about her experience. With Lucky she delivers on that promise with mordant wit and an eye for life's absurdities, as she describes what she was like both as a young girl before the rape and how that rape changed but did not sink the woman she later became.

It is Alice's indomitable spirit that we come to know in these pages. The same young woman who sets her sights on becoming an Ethel Merman-style diva one day (despite her braces, bad complexion, and extra weight) encounters what is still thought of today as the crime from which no woman can ever really recover. In an account that is at once heartrending and hilarious, we see Alice's spirit prevail as she struggles to have a normal college experience in the aftermath of this harrowing, life-changing event.

No less gripping is the almost unbelievable role that coincidence plays in the unfolding of Sebold's narrative. Her case, placed in the inactive file, is miraculously opened again six months later when she sees her rapist on the street. This begins the long road to what dominates these pages: the struggle for triumph and understanding -- in the courtroom and outside in the world.

Lucky is, quite simply, a real-life thriller. In its literary style and narrative tension we never lose sight of why this life story is worth reading. At the end we are left standing in the wake of devastating violence, and, like the writer, we have come to know what it means to survive. ... Read more

Reviews

Brutally honest, terrifying yet ultimately rewarding read, December 4, 2000
What happened to Alice Sebold shouldn't happen to anyone. That she survived her ordeal at all is miraculous, but that she found a voice with which to describe her experience with clarity, with tremendous insight and with warmth is almost unbelievable, yet this is exactly what she does with Lucky.

As a studen at Syracuse University in 1980, Alice is the victim of a horribly brutal rape as she leaves a friends house. The experience understandably shatters her, but even she does not realize the depth of her feelings or the effect they are having on her life and behavior. She eventually sees her rapist again, and takes us through the trial and subsequent events in her life, which are tied intricately to the rape even though she is unaware of it. The afterward picks up ten years after the book opens as she is still battling with the emotional scars that have not yet healed.

That anyone can talk about such horror at all is amazing, but Alice really allows readers inside her head, hiding nothing from them. Her painful interactions with her family and friends as they try to do what's best for her, and as she tries to convince them that she's 'recovered' come across as achingly real as they were for her. Readers, too, can see how damaged Alice still feels even as she tells herself that she's not, and I felt myself rooting for this heroic woman throughout the book, hoping that she would find whatever justice that she could and pick up the pieces of her life.

This is no maudlin tale, not at all romanticized or sugar coated, which may be difficult for some to take, as it was for me at times. But I kept reading because I was so amazed at what was being offered, that someone was sharing such a personal experience, something that affects more women than most people know. I am fortunate enough not to know someone who has endured a similar ordeal, although I now think I have some very limited insight into what a person might experience.

I applaud Alice Sebold for her bravery in putting forth her story, and I think this book is an important one. It's not an easy read nor one to be taken lightly, but I feel that I learned so much from it. And the fact that this book represents Alice's triumph makes it all the more rewarding.

A TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY, October 10, 2002
Like her wonderful novel The Lovely Bones - which I've also reviewed and which you must read - Lucky is a harrowing, heart-wrenching book about the worst possible thing that can happen to a woman. Alice Sebold tells the raw story of her rape ordeal and her subsequent struggle for recovery with an honesty and warmth which is compelling. Lucky reads almost like a novel itself at times, with gripping moments of suspense, particularly during the court trial scenes.
Alice Sebold was the innocent victim of an unforgivable crime - but she doesn't ask for our sympathy or pity in these beautifully written pages. She earns our respect and admiration for the courageous way she tells how the traumatic events changed and shaped her life; how the naive college student would eventually become a hardened, determined aggressor herself in her brave fight for justice against her attacker. Sadly, this natural reaction to her personal violation came with a price - destructive behavioural damage that brought a later downward spiral into drugs. What the author didn't know at the time is that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder; an anxiety syndrome that emerges following a psychologically distressing traumatic event such as rape, which she battles to overcome.
Can someone really, truly, get over something so savage and brutal as rape is the numbing thought you're left with long after you put the book aside? The past can never be forgotten, but Alice Sebold has managed to crawl from the wreckage and move on with her life to a happier future that has brought her international fame and acclaim. That says something about the human spirit - and everything about this remarkable woman.

Rape Survivor's Take, January 8, 2004
I read this book strictly because I am a rape survivor. I was raped in June of 2003. My attack and rape were so similar to Seebold's that it was eerie. One aspect of rape therapy is to re-tell your own story; re-write it. However, when you are attacked so brutally and aren't 'supposed' to be alive, the re-telling is difficult. Events are lost in memory almost as quickly as they occur. The brain is too preoccupied with dying as painlessly as possible, while simultaneously looking for any escape (at least in my own case).
Because of the way that my brain functioned under such duress, I am finding this book to be a useful tool lately. As I re-read Seebold's account of her own rape, I am better able to remember. I can say, 'yes! exactly what happened!' or 'no, I did this instead.' I write in the margins. I do it for personal use, to better help in my own recovery. If you are a survivor, I would ask your counselor if she recommends this for you. It is helping me now. Hence, on that score, this book has been invaluable to me.

However, I must agree with previous reviewers regarding the rather selfish tone of the author. I also found her to be overly self-centered and amazingly insensitive to others around her. I did get the impression that she really believed that she was the only one that had been hurt and even if she wasn't, her pain was the only pain that mattered (not just to her, but in general.)

Yet, it is important to remember that this is a *memoir* and not fiction. Therefore, Ms. Seebold can only tell the story as it is. If there is not much written on recovery, well, perhaps this is because there hasn't been much experience in the way of recovery.

I would certainly not have picked this book up had I not shared a similar experience. I read it the first time (within a week afer my own rape) merely for company. To survive such an ordeal absolutely leaves you as a complete alien, walking in a daze in a world that you never expected to see again. Merely associating with people around you -- co-workers, neighbors, your grocery store cashiers, etc., leaves you lonely for company of someone who has been just where you are. Books like this one can fill this need initially.

To those who have survived such a rape and are interested in reading more, I must recommend the phenomenal book by Susan Brison called Aftermath.

A stunningly honest book, written in a clear voice., October 8, 1999
Even before I write a commentary about Alice Sebold's book, I know that a mini-review like this could never do it justice. "Lucky" is an incredible book, written by an incredible author. What struck me most about Sebold's writing is her unadorned honesty. A previous reviewer stated that she found the characters to be cliche. I found the book and characters to be exactly the opposite. While reading "Lucky", I wondered to myself if I could be as open and honest as Sebold writes. Probably not, was my answer. "Lucky" is a book that is written with a clear and honest voice; a voice that stayed with me for weeks after reading the book. And there was humor. Humor which both surprised me--because it struck me that a book about rape shouldn't contain humor--then made perfect sense to me, because Alice Sebold is a human being and humor is one of the functions that human beings employ in dealing with pain.

This could have very easily have been a "poor me" book, and maybe some readers have the expectations that it should be more that type of book. One of the main reasons that I found "Lucky" to be as compelling as it is, is because of what it isn't. "Lucky" is not a book filled with self pity. I don't want to say that Sebold's book isn't emotional, because it most certainly is, but the emotions aren't worn on Alice Sebold's sleeves. She writes in a way in which a reader can understand some of the pain and trauma she has gone through (and I can only imagine, still deals with), but that emotion and pain does not get in the way of her being an excellent narrator. The narration in unnerving at times, because of how concise a writer Sebold is. She writes the story of her life and rape (as they are intertwined) in a very straight foward and matter-of-fact fashion. Maybe time and distance have allowed that type of narration to occur. But Sebold's straight fowardness has not resulted in a cold narration. "Lucky" is an incredible book written by a fragile human being; a human being who has bravely written what would have to be one of the most painful experiences ever to occur in anyone's life. In writing "Lucky", I feel that Alice Sebold has presented a gift to all of us. A gift of her pain, honesty, humor and fragility. I thank her for this gift.

Alice Sebold's masterpiece, December 12, 2003
Frankly, I liked (if that's a word that can be used about a book concerning the subject of personal rape) Lucky more than The Lovely Bones, her second book, the one that put her on the map. Perhaps `appreciated' would be a better word for my feelings about Lucky.
To bare oneself, to detail the experience of rape so unsparingly, to extend the memoir back to her childhood and forward to her downward spiral into heroin addiction and depression is to strip naked for your public. It takes guts, something Alice Sebold has in spades.
The book's title comes from a comment by a cop that she should consider herself "lucky" to have just been raped, as another young woman was murdered in the same spot just a short time earlier. Not feeling very "lucky," Sebold proceeds to show how this incident of brutality and violence changed the course of her life.
I have heard Alice Sebold speak on several occasions and greatly admire her candor, her honesty, and her insistence on calling rape by its true name. Bravo for this sere and scathing memoir by a remarkable woman and writer.

A powerful voice, July 10, 2002
Alice Sebold's Lucky offers a stark window onto the strains and suffering of rape. Sebold's sharp prose, blunt honesty, and rather black sense of humor give the reader that rare feeling of stepping into an author's skin. Where others would shy away, she offers vivid, often horifying picture so that we can know the brutality she suffered. Most importantly, I did not get a sense she was rewriting the history of her attack and her reaction, but rather like she was opening up a journal of dark times.

Though at times a hard trip, readers will certainly grow from the experience of reading this work. I urge those interested to read it.

WOW! Powerful and necessary read., January 7, 2003
This is a very powerful book. The opening chapter describes the brutal rape of the author at the end of her freshman year at University. The subsequent chapters deal with feelings of guilt and anger and her struggle to relate to those closest to her, her mother father and sister and good friends. She also has difficulties with the police who are depicted as something less than sympathetic. On her return to University her spots the rapist on the street and turns him into the police where he is subsequently charged and convicted through the courageous tenacity of Alice.
The power in the telling of this true story lies in the uncompromising steely eyed look and description of the emotions surrounding Alice's rape. How does the victim react to those who love her but are incapable or at least unable to express support in a meaningful way? How do the prejudices and biases harboured by police, friends, family and psychiatrists fail to give the needed support? And not only that, they blame the victim.
Then when a close friend of Alice is raped and Alice is not able to comfort or support her does it become clear that there is little anyone can offer the victim except warm and caring love, and even that is not enough and as Alice says at the end of the fourth chapter "No one can pull anyone back from anywhere. You save yourself or you remain unsaved."

In the final chapter "Aftermath" Alice describes her life during the next ten years and we see that the rape is not an incident in the past that one "gets over" but a defining moment that affects Alice and all rape victims in way that is permanent and like survivors of the Vietnam war is identified as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

As a man I wondered how would I respond to a rape victim. Is loving care the best we can do? It becomes evident that the only positive way is to work to prevent rapes. This is a book worth reading as difficult as that is. Alice Seabold has done a great service in telling her story. 4.5/5

A Story of Survival - Incredible., July 18, 2004
In this thought-provoking, chilling memoir, Alice Sebold recounts the events of her rape and the aftermath of that tragedy. While strong enough to go through with the trial and conviction of her attacker, Sebold's emotional state was deeply affected for many years after. Her memoir follows the events that occurred after her rape and the things she attempted in order to escape her pain.

Sebold captures this period in her life with great intensity and literary skill. Not only does the reader become informed of the actual events of the rape and the events following it, but we get a look into Sebold's home life and her personality before the night that would change everything.

This story isn't just about a college girl's rape and her survival story. It's a story about her life: her family, her friends, her childhood. Sebold explains how when she was younger all she wanted was to be hugged by her parents, but she would settle for something as simple as a touch because she was offered nothing more (and sometimes not even that luxury). It's about growing up in a dysfunctional family and getting through it. It's about surviving not only bad experiences in life, but surviving and coping with continuing bad situations.

A great read - highly recommended to anyone.

Victim of Rape; extrordinary Story, February 5, 2003
The book Lucky, is a memoir about Alice Sebold. In the beginning, Alice describes a brutal rape in her freshman year of college. She went to her dorm room, told a friend and they went to the hospital. Alice underwent tests that would later help the police prosecute a criminal. She went home for the summer and returned back to school at Penn. State. She then ran into her Rapist on the street and called the police. They filed a law suit in which many people testified.
Alice is able to look at her case impassively enough to see that she had many things going for her in achieving a conviction; Things that were a matter of chance, as it happens, but which allowed her to see it through in a way that someone of different circumstances might not have.
She amazingly, is able to portray herself, as "lucky" - lucky to be bright, well-spoken; lucky to have been wearing concealing rather than revealing clothes on the night of the rape; lucky to have had no sexual history to hold against her; lucky to be alive.
Alice has a true talent for telling her story. And it is a story full of pain, healing, rage and sadness. She tells the story with such passion and such detail that it's hard to put down for five minutes.
I would recommend this book to anyone who can stand to read a sad detailed account of a rape and the aftermath of one. Girl or boy, Man or Woman, this story is a sad but true story, a story that I think every one should read. I would give this book 5 out of 5 for its sad story, the sad story that will haunt you for the rest of your life.

Powerful, haunting and beautifully written., November 7, 1999
I read Lucky on a flight home. I couldn't put it down. I continued reading it while waiting for my luggage in the baggage claim area and I did not leave the airport until I read the last page. My autonomic nervous system took a beating. Alice's story haunts me. I think about the unintentional damage we do to people who have suffered an act of violence when we attempt to "understand." In our endeavor to put logic on the illogical, we tell ourselves that what happened was their fault, perhaps because of weakness or bad judgement. When we convince ourselves of this, we convince ourselves that we are in control our lives; random acts of violence couldn't possibly happen to us. Lucky blows apart this lie. Alice Sebold won't let you hide behind rationalization, explanation, or theoretical discussion on the ills of society to excuse or lighten the effects and the damage an act of violence has on another person. She will make you face the random, violent, crazy world we live in with a writing style that is direct, harsh and unapologetic. She never asks for your pity. But Lucky is also a story written with compassion, humor, warmth and intelligence. As Alice Sebold tells of her long and difficult journey from a place of fear, rage and despair to a place of meaning and hope, you cannot help but be humbled and awed at the complex union between fragility and strength in human beings. Lucky is a book you will remember long after you have finished the last page. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Destined to become a classic of adventure literature, The Last Season examines the extraordinary life of legendary backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson and his mysterious disappearance in California's unforgiving Sierra Nevada—mountains as perilous as they are beautiful.

Eric Blehm's masterful work is a gripping detective story interwoven with the riveting biography of a complicated, original, and wholly fascinating man.

Reviews

Fear and Loathing Meets John Muir, March 23, 2006
OK. Total Disclosure: I worked with and was a friend of Randy Morgenson -- the subject of this book -- for over 25 years; I was also interviewed for the book (endlessly, it seemed).

For all that, when I read this (a manuscript copy), I found it compelling. I mean, I lived the whole thing pretty intimately, but kept wondering "hmm, I wonder what happens next?"

A number of the reviews emphasize Randy's apparently troubled life. That's kind of true, but I notice one of the reviewers calls it a love story -- a love for the land. And I think that's closer to it. It's also one of the few honest descriptions of the exciting, glamorous life of a backcountry ranger (the fast cars, alluring women, investment strategies...)I've run across (Jordan Fischer-Smith's "Nature Noir", though not about backcountry rangers, is the other excellent account of rangering).

Anyway, if you're a hiker or one of those folks who always wanted to be a backcountry ranger, this is the book to read. Maybe a cautionary tale but, really, it's all about not being happy anywhere else.

George

Backcountry Ranger, April 16, 2006
I was a backcountry ranger in the High Sierra and Rocky Mountains for many years with both the Natl Park Service and USDA-Forest Service. This is a compelling book because it captures the culture, values, accomplishments and limitations of living a backcountry life. "Wilderness teaches a person the answers to questions that we have not yet learned how to ask" (photographer Nancy Newhall). To paraphrase Isaac Walton's "The Compleate Angler" (1650), "time spent in mountains will not be counted against the rest of your life."

Randy was well known and admired because he lived a backcountry life and lived it well. He modeled first-hand knowledge and care and respect for wild ecosystems. Being a backcountry ranger immerses you in rarified air and light, extends the useable light of every day, winter and summer and in many ways is living a religious experience, a special calling. This sets you apart from the every day world and makes it hard on relationships, personal and professional. Each day is a wealth of learning opportunities that teaches you to not take life and people for granted.

Randy lived with the understanding of Sierra Nevada mountaineer Norman Clyde, "the mountains will always be there tomorrow, make sure you can say the same." Randy relished every day with Clyde's thought in mind. We are all envious of Randy, he lived a full life (including the ups and downs) doing what he loved and doing it well.

As with Alsup's (2001) "Missing in the Minarets" the search for Walter A. Starr, Jr., in 1933, "The Last Season," immerses you in the culture, shortcomings, accomplishments and day-to-day activities of Sequoia-Kings Canyon Natl Park backcountry. Everyone involved is passionate. A large, long-term investment of physical and emotional energy and effort commands a high price. The rewards are outside of ordinary life and difficult to put into words. Those who look in from the "outside" do not always understand when a life is cut short. The rewards are not monetary and "University of the Wilderness" curricula is not always valued or recognized in an urban culture. Rewards are emphemeral and are often taken away just as quickly as they are offered.

We are privileged to have known Randy Morgenson.

A Community Runs Through It, April 18, 2006
This is a book I staggered through in a few days: here is an emotionally significant, compelling biography of a contemporary man, Randy Morgenson, and the people about him that contributed to and helped define his humanness. Eric Blehm's spyglass peek into Randy's life is both tense and tender and - while a major search and rescue effort to find Randy after he is reported missing in the Sierra backcountry is woven throughout the book - it is about our relationships and community with others and nature.

We are all without purity; Randy Morgenson models his humanity cloaked in honesty, deceit, heroics, compassion, anger, frustration, and love. He has become a backcountry Ranger in the Sierra Nevada, both lifeline and escape from and for reality. He's a conflicted man in the end, but still a person I would have cherished knowing and appreciating firsthand.

Like Randy Morgenson, I was fortunate to grow up in a family that spent summers in the Sierra. My father was a pioneering desert rat and Sierra maven; he refused to let his boys swim in fresh water sources, training us instead to look for dead ponds, without inlet or outlet. As young children, we learned it was noble (or so we thought then) to carry out someone's carelessly or purposefully discarded trash.

By the time of my first extended backpack trip some 45 years ago, the Sierra had captured my soul and given me in return a sense of strength, confidence, quiet, and purpose. Unlike Randy, my life spun away from the Sierra except for as many backpack and camping trips I could manage. But, a piece of me always is fixed to the smell of these mountains, for it is my lifeline as well.

This book is not just about Randy Morgenson. Like each of us, our stories involve a community of people. Randy's community is his fellow backcountry Rangers, his parents, his wife Judi, and the solitude of the Sierra. Like each of us, he had opportunities, he had choices. While Randy is thematic, the book acknowledges - with both descriptive and caring narrative - the individuals who together give us a wilderness experience mostly free from city trauma, exploitation, and ourselves.

"The Last Season" will certainly appeal to those who have experienced the Sierra, whether Yosemite, a piece of the John Muir, or simply Rock Creek. The text is detailed, nicely balanced, and presents Randy Morgenson as a man who lived a life that I care about when it is finished.

Those who have not been to the Sierra, or met or talked with the many dedicated men and women who help define and protect our diminishing wilderness areas, will also gain with a reading of this book: Eric Blehm has skillfully captured the intensity, drama, and emotional storm not only of a major Sierra search and rescue operation, but also the man who triggered it.

an excellent book, April 19, 2006
On the morning of July 21, 1996, Randy Morgenson tied together the tent flaps of his ranger station at Bench Lake in Kings Canyon National Park and went on patrol. He was never heard from again. What happened to Morgenson and how that story was pieced together is the subject of Eric Blehm's, "The Last Season."

Tracking down every detail of the Morgenson disappearance, Blehm interviewed the missing backcountry ranger's family, friends and co-workers. He also sifted through reports and logbooks from the Morgenson SAR. Not confining himself to a paper search, Blehm walked the ground, following Morgenson's probable last steps. The author's research, his affinity for the missing ranger and his obvious love for the Sierra Nevada mountains all come shining through to make "The Last Season" a must-read. Blehm additionally tackles many issues important to seasonal rangers such as recognition of their term of service.

Because it's biography, "The Last Season" is also a story about dreams and aspirations, successes and failures, friendships, love and human frailty. And it's also the story of the National Park Service when the Wilderness Act of 1964 was young - before it forever changed the concept of how our nation's wild lands would be visited and managed.

How things have changed in 45 years! In 1965, Randy Morgenson's first year as a seasonal backcountry ranger, he wasn't required to know CPR. He carried no sidearm or handcuffs and had no training in search and rescue. In fact, Morgenson received no training of any kind before taking up his station at Rae Lakes, deep within the wilderness of Kings Canyon. At his post, located along the John Muir Trail, Morgenson was responsible for "spreading the gospel" of wilderness to as many hikers and packers as possible. He issued fire permits, picked up trash, naturalized campsites, picked up trash, gave assistance whenever possible [and radioed for help whenever assistance was not possible], picked up trash and represented the law of the land. Oh; and he picked up trash.

Backcountry rangers live outdoors in conditions that would make Spartans blush. The job requires an individual who is comfortable with solitude and knows how to handle loneliness. But misanthropes need not apply because, paradoxically, people who gravitate to this job must also be friendly and gregarious since they spend so much time working with the public. Backcountry rangers must also be self-motivating because they work their entire season without significant supervision. These days, in addition to their regular duties [which have changed little since 1965] backcountry rangers have also become medics, law enforcement officers, SAR specialists, interpreters, scientists, research technicians, resource managers and campground rangers. And they still pick up trash.

Randy Morgenson was raised in Yosemite Valley where his father worked for the Curry Company. As a boy during the 1950s, Randy played in the meadows of Yosemite Valley much the same way city kids played in urban parks. Weekends were spent exploring the high country with his brother and father, learning the natural history of the Sierra. Growing up, Morgenson knew Wallace Stegner, Ansel Adams and other Yosemite notables. Stegner coached the young writer on how to prepare his work for publication. Adams gave Randy his first camera. Dana Morgenson instilled a father's love of the Sierra while also teaching young Randy the natural history of John Muir's "Range of Light."

His love of the high mountains secure, Morgenson joined the Peace Corps, wanting to climb in the Himalaya. After two years away, he returned to California, realizing the Sierra Nevada, in one way or another, offered everything he would ever need.

Blehm has utilized the techniques of creative non-fiction, but without putting the author in the center of the story, to make "The Last Season" quite different from other books about rangers. It's not presented as a chronological catalog of events, memories and experiences. Neither is it a natural history book nor a research-oriented regurgitation of incidents or personal history. To the contrary. Facts in "The Last Season" are thoroughly checked and double checked - no doubt to the annoyance of many interviewees who had to constantly field questions and provide information over the six-year course of the author's investigations.

The work, the wait and the questioning were well worth it. What emerges from "The Last Season" is the story of Randy Morgenson as a ranger par excellence. Yet, the central theme of the book remains the mystery of what happened to Morgenson that day in July and it plays as such - the clues, the tension, motivations, a cast of characters, the investigation and finally the denouement.

Blehm delicately covers the topic of Morgenson's extra-marital affair - a love story with three broken hearts. Torn by his actions and aware of the pain he caused, Morgenson was deeply depressed the summer of his disappearance. This lead to some searchers thinking Morgenson had either deserted his post or committed suicide. Feelings are still passionate about Morgenson and that summer. Working a SAR, as any ranger knows, is difficult physically and emotionally. But to be searching for one of your own adds a dimension deeper than any civilian can ever comprehend or understand.

"The Last Season" handles the lessons from the Randy Morgenson SAR unaffected by strong emotion or prejudice. No person is excoriated for failing in their duties, overlooking or missing clues. If anything, Blehm is unstinting in his praise for all the people involved in the search. Not so the systems they were required to utilize or the followup - including the issue of how duty-related deaths are handled.

When NPS duty-related deaths occur [as when a fire fighter was killed in Kings Canyon National Park a few years ago], findings and recommendations are published and quickly acted upon. However, ranger divisions are much slower to act. Important recommendations made by the Serious Accident Investigation Team after Morgenson's death have still not been implemented nationally. They include a daily check-in procedure for rangers working in remote areas, GPS trackers and emergency beacons. These procedures would enhance protocols already in place for checking on rangers who haven't reported in over 24 hours.

Another issue Blehm mentions involves health care benefits for seasonal rangers. Simply stated: long termed seasonals don't get health benefits. The situation is analogous to Wal-mart saving millions of dollars each year by keeping their associates below 40 hours so they don't have to pay for benefits.

Blehm is also concerned that no program exists to honor length of service for seasonal rangers. He cites how Morgenson worked 28 seasons for the NPS yet received no recognition of his service.
Randy, in his log books, especially toward the end of his life, was upset with this lack of recognition. He always felt that the issues of recognition and health benefits were an indication that seasonals weren't being treated fairly or as adults - that their work was neither understood nor appreciated. The attitude had always been, and continues to be, that seasonals are children without a plan in life. They're not given credit for knowing anything. Many times Morgenson must have mused on how many permanents had benefitted from the training and experience of long-term seasonals like himself.

"The Last Season" also examines the roll of communications failures in remote National Parks. If radio contact with the backcountry is as poor today, as Blehm maintains, as it was when Randy Morgenson went missing in 1996, then perhaps nothing was learned. This would be a tragedy. Radios issued in the spring of 1996 were bad. Not one of them was tough enough to survive the Sequoia & Kings Canyon backcountry. There were problems with the radio repeaters too, with huge "dead zones" in the backcountry. Sequoia & Kings Canyon finally mapped these zones and tried to improve the repeaters but, as of summer 2005, success has been limited.

At least the FCC has mandated a change in how the FM radio band is handled and, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks are committed to making the change from "widebanding" to "narrowbanding." The difficulty is that the rest of the country is lagging far, far behind. The biggest issue with narrowband radios is that they can be jammed by wideband radios if both are being used in the same area.

Weaving a genuinely interesting personal story along with important ranger issues, Eric Blehm has written an important book. He has succeeded in informing readers about wilderness, backcountry rangers and important NPS issues - all through the lens of Randy Morgenson's life and death.

[this review is taken from my book review of The Last Season in Ranger Magazine].

The Last Season, April 15, 2006
I moved to Yosemite in 1945 with my Mother and Father. I was 5 years old.
I grew up with Randy Morgenson and his brother Larry.
Larry was my best friend. Randy, Larry and I went to Grammer School and High School togather. I have hiked the Sierras as a boy. Top of Half Dome for a sunrise, and much more.
This story of "Back Country Ranger" Randy Morgenson is Capivating in it's authentisity, and mistique. It is unbelivable, the reality and accuracy portrayed by this author. Permanent Rangers vs Seasonal Rangers, everything is exactly true and real as I remember, as a native "Yosemite Kid."
I stopped only to sleep, then finished the book. Great Read!
Tom Christensen (Yosemite Valley resident 1945 - 1960)

Knowing Randy, June 17, 2006
I concur with the rave reviews of this book. The author gives us a superb inside look at Randy's life. BTW, I knew Randy and his family as a teen, growing up in Yosemite Valley, although he was a couple of years older than I. His dad, Dana, was my mother's boss at YPC reservations. The author has captured the personalities of the Morgenson family as I remember them, as well as treating us to an inside look at the poetry in nature and Randy's soul. I also concur with the assessment that it puts the national NPS bureaucracy and ungrateful rescued hikers to shame.
With that said, I think the author himself took "poetic license" in a few places, or just made some minor errors. For example, I, and none of my family members, have never heard the Valley referred to as "the granite womb," which, of course, is not to say that it was not referred to that in way, or that it is not apt. Also, for the record, the epitaph citing William O. Douglas as "Chief Justice" of the Supreme Court is inaccurate. He was never the Chief, only an Associate. Nonetheless, it is very apt to quote him as he was himself a lover of the Pacific wilderness and authored the important case saving Mineral King from becoming a ski resort.

An exquisite, brilliantly researched portrait of a backcountry ranger, November 16, 2006

I remember hearing when Randy Morgenson went missing. A backcountry soloist myself, I noticed signs posted at the trailheads in Sequoia National Park. I recall wondering: What had happened to Randy? Would he ever be found? Would I accidentally stumble upon some clue? And what would happen if I should ever disappear?

Eric Blehm's brilliantly researched book answers many of these questions, and more. Eric creates an exquisitely sensitive portrait of a rugged man who devoted himself to the wilderness he loved, and who ultimately gave his life back to the mountains. "The Last Season" ignites the passion of the reader for the remote high country in which Randy lived during the most formative parts of his life.

A fitting eulogy for the dedicated backcountry ranger, "The Last Season" tells the true tale. Randy was not perfect, but he was exceptional. Eric illuminates the multiplicity of Randy's life, the nobility and the sadness, the funny anecdotes, and ultimately the ending. Tragic? I think not. I believe that Randy would have been honored to be seen for who he was, a passionate eccentric, a man dedicated to life, to his friends, to his wife, and especially to the mountains that he loved....to the very end. Eric Blehm brings alive the life and the death of backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson, and the blissful yet unforgiving perfection of the magnificent Sierra Nevada.

Masterpiece of the Mountains, May 2, 2006
This book is a brilliant work. A must read for anyone with a longing for the back country. Blehm gets it right in his depiction of the Sierra Neveda. You can almost taste the crisp morning air as
the author describes the sensations of Kings Canyon and surrounding
Sierras. This book is one for the library, to be read more than once just to get the feel of the mountains.

A film depiction must follow!, April 10, 2006
I just finished Eric'syour book. It was easy for me to visualize the terrain as I read. Eric captured the essence of both the spiritual aspect of the wilderness in general and the uniqueness of the Sierra Nevada wilderness areas (gifts). Congratulations on a job well done and good luck on what will undoubtedly be a growing tribute to Randy with a film depiction, I'm confident.

A compelling book about a compelling life...., July 14, 2007
I was inspired to read "The Last Season" by the "Backpacker" magazine article, but resolved to hold out for the paperback version, partly with the idea that it would be ideal reading on the trail, and partly because I like paperbacks. Well, once I got it, it never did make it to the trail--I just finished the book, and to be honest, I found it remarkable. Rare is the biography that genuinely gives the reader a sense of truly knowing it's subject, and Eric Blehm succeeds at doing this beautifully. Randy Morgenson was an extraordinary individual; flawed, yes, but as true a steward as there ever was of the wilderness he loved, who "spoke for the trees" with the passion of the Lorax....he eventually became a part of the very fabric of that wilderness, in the real sense, and I doubt he would have wanted it any other way. His was really the most inspiring story I've ever read....to get some small sense of seeing the world through Randy's eyes was truly an honor, and I thank Mr. Blehm for that gift. I wish I could have known Randy. I have only been to the general area once, when I went to Yosemite with the Yosemite Institute when I was in High School in 1978, but I will never forget the chorus of gasps on the school bus (mine included) as we passed through a tunnel into the late afternoon reflections of the Yosemite Valley. I have seen a lot of the natural beauty in this part of the country--the Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier, the Bighorns, the Black Hills, but nothing has ever really struck me quite like the overwhelming majesty of that place. I understand fully how enraptured Randy was with that area--or can I really? In the one week that I spent there, decades ago? Probably not.

Again I wanted to thank Eric Blehm for such a tragically beautiful, inspiring story. Randy had the passion and commitment for the outdoors that I think many of us aspire to, but probably very few actually can ever grasp. Perhaps this story can help.

... Read more

Editorial Review

Carolyn Jourdan, an attorney on Capitol Hill, thought she had it made. But when her mother has a heart attack, she returns home—to the Tennessee mountains, where her father is a country doctor and her mother works as his receptionist. Jourdan offers to fill in for her mother until she gets better. But days turn into weeks as she trades her suits for scrubs and finds herself following hazmat regulations for cleaning up bodily fluids; maintaining composure when confronted with a splinter the size of a steak knife; and tending to the loquacious Miss Hiawatha, whose daily doctor visits are never billed. Most important, though, she comes to understand what her caring and patient father means to her close-knit community.

With great humor and great tenderness, Heart in the Right Place shows that some of our biggest heroes are the ones living right beside us. ... Read more

Reviews

Charming, inspirational, and unputdownable!!!!, August 18, 2007

When Senate Counsel Carolyn Jourdan returns to the mountains of eastern Tennessee from Washington, DC after the sudden illness of her mother, she has no idea how long she'll be needed to fill in her role as receptionist for her father, the kindly country doctor. She figures at first it will just be two days. But readers can be glad that it wasn't as in Heart in the Right Place, Jourdan takes the reader on a true journey of the heart to the people of eastern Tennessee and through all the trials and tribulations of a small country one-doctor medical practice. One where he might be paid in even a fox carcass if he charged his patients anything at all.

We meet and learn to love the patients in the practice such as the eccentric Miss Hiawatha and the kindly Mike who doesn't hardly know he is handicapped. And then there are the two friends Obie and Kermit. You never know what kind of predicament they are going to get themselves into next and what kind of injuries it's going to cause. Each time they come through the clinic door it's going to be something totally different. The big question on everyone's mind is, will Carolyn stay in eastern Tennessee where she earned $0 in one year or return to her high-power, six-figure job in Washington, DC?

It was recommended I get this book via Amazon's Customers Also Bought feature after I had purchased another book. I clicked on it and read the description. As a long-time medical office employee it sounded right up my alley. But it would appeal to anyone who enjoys sweet stories with quirky characters such as the Mitford series by Jan Karon or anyone who lives the TV series Northern Exposure or Ballykissangel. But these are very real people here, not those from fiction. I laughed and I cried, I read passages out loud to my husband, and I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning two nights in a row to finish it. I can't recommend this book enough. You will want to buy one for yourself and another as a gift for someone you care about.

Page turner, June 9, 2007
What a surprise. It looked like a good read, but I couldn't put it down. The first book in a long time that I read in one day. Enjoyable, funny, tear jerker, heart warming all fit this this book.

Solid, never sappy, read., March 4, 2008
Readers looking for something touching and personal will certainly enjoy this. It is a fast book to read, mixing humor and poignancy well. If you like A Prairie Home Companion With Garrison Keillor (30th Anniversary Season Celebration) then you will be interested in this. The book does tend toward over-long explanation, especially at the end. The tale could have finished on a more powerful note if it had been three chapters shorter. However, if you are tired of reading books that cram the heroine's love life down your throat, you will certainly enjoy the maturely understated love that may be blossoming for Carolyn here. Just a note of warning to the squeamish, there are graphic descriptions of accidents and surgeries.

What a Great Book!, February 4, 2008
A very good friend recommended this book to me because I don't live very far from the town where the author's father practiced medicine. It turned out to be an excellent recommendation because I don't know when I have enjoyed a book more than I did this one. Being a native of the same area as the author I recognized many of the characters that she describes although they have different names and live a little farther to the east. I even had a relative who was just like Miss Hiawatha. Miss Hiawatha in case you are wondering is one of the many delightful characters that populate this book.

The basic plot of this book follows a powerful Washington DC attorney (the author) who has to take a leave from her job as a Senate council to come back home to East Tennessee to help out her parents. Her father is a doctor in a small town just outside of Knoxville who offers care to anyone and everyone regardless of their ability to pay and he even takes things like chickens in trade. Because of that he can't afford to hire a receptionist when his wife suffers a heart attack and has to take some time off. The author plans on spending a few days helping out but days turn into months and she ends up getting very attached to the job.

As she tries to settle in to her new duties the author runs into a cast of characters that could never be called up from even the most fertile imagination. Besides Miss Hiawatha there is a farmer who has the worst luck in the world and a George Jones like character who gets drunk and drives his lawnmower down the four-lane highway. And those three are just the appetizers. There are parts of this book that will make you laugh so hard that you will cry. Of course with this being the story of a doctor's office there are other very sad stories that will make you cry for other reasons. This author has a distinct talent for causing her readers to get very attached to the characters that she writes about.

On the technical side this is a very well written book and it contains some very thought provoking chapters. The author put a lot of feeling into this book and it shows. Above all though this is just an enjoyable book about some wonderful and sometimes eccentric people who reside in East Tennessee. This was a very good book and it is one that will always hold a special place in my personal library.

at last, some real life time, June 26, 2007
As a new resident of the area written about in the book, I just missed the author when I was buying this book - she writes with a true clarity, insight honed by experience with these wonderful people. I am even more looking forward to the years to come in the Great Smoky Mountains. Her books were sold out after I bought the last one in TN-and she will be available for signing and I hope to catch her. I will recommend this book to my family and friends as a meaninful respite from the fantasy sex and violence that so dominates our culture - it is time to hear about real people who do care and do endure.

Yes, Virginia, once upon a time, there really was a Mayberry, July 4, 2007
This is a great book! I couldn't put it down. It's funny! It's entertaining! And on top of that - it's all true.

Maybe it doesn't hurt that I know these people: that the doctor in the book was my family doctor for many years, and that his eventual retirement was a truly sad blow, as well as a tragic day, in the lives of all his patients. Maybe we took his little unpretentious practice for granted while we had it: well, we don't anymore!

L.C. Cate

All foibles - great and small, November 14, 2009
If you want to reminisce about life in rural America, read this book.
If you want to learn about everyday people, read this book.
If you enjoy sappy stories in women's magazines, read this book.
If you want to learn what it's like to be a small-town doctor, read this book.

My opinion? The book is an easy-to-read page turner. That is because the writer's style is conversational and engaging. We all know people like this no matter where we live. There are humorous moments and predictably sad ones as well. What's missing, in my opinion, is real deeper meaning and a clearer understanding of what motivates the author. We get a peek into her spiritual journey which is obviously meant to explain her choices, but it is so basic and trite that it left me with many more questions than answers.

What about the mother? How does she fit into this story? Other than knowing she had a heart attack and reading about her immediate recovery - the mother is nearly absent from this memoir.

Would the author have made the same choice if she had a family of her own? Would her parents have asked the same thing of a son, as they ask of their only child, a daughter? Did the culture of Washington, create the lack of social connection the author intimates? Or, does the author have issues with integrating into society? Why is a grown, supposedly successful lawyer, so haunted by the traumas of growing up we all face?

Heartwarming, October 8, 2008
A wonderful and humorous story about a daughter who returns from a high powered position in the United States Congress to be the receptionist for her father's country physician office. The cast of characters and their many illnesses, real and imagined, provide wonderful insight into the human condition. You will laugh at the antics of the country patients, friends and even the animals that Carolyn's daddy treats in his small town Smokey Mountain office. Carolyn Jourdan recounts it all with humor, pathos and spirituality. Don't miss this one!

A Bit Overdone But Still Entertaining, September 27, 2008
Why would a high powered Senate lawyer suddenly decide to become a country doctor's receptionist? Because her family asked her to. Carolyn Jourdan's 70 something mother who normally does the job for Carolyn's father, the small rural area's only doctor, has had a heart attack and family duty brings Carolyn to the rescue "for a few days". This delightful memoir tells us all what it's like to escape a life only to be dragged back in--and finding it much more fulfilling the second time around. Full of anecdotes about life in a country doc's office (where you can keep someone from dying AND x-ray a miniature goat in the same day) we can delight in the complicated simplicity of life East Tennessee through the eyes of one of is very own daughters. This book is hilarious, touching, and above all, honest.

I love this book!, August 1, 2007
Heart in the Right Place was everything I wanted it to be when I purchased it a couple of weeks ago on vacation in the Smokies. This story tugs at your heartstrings, making you laugh one minute and cry the next. I was lucky to be in the right place myself and had my copy signed by the author. I highly recommend this book if you're looking for a great read! ... Read more

Editorial Review

"A stunningly beautiful new memoir . . . a near-perfect work of literature." —Stephen Elliot, San Francisco ChronicleNick Flynn met his father when he was working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this stranger father, a self-proclaimed poet and con man doing time in federal prison for bank robbery. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City tells the story of the trajectory that led Nick and his father onto the streets, into that shelter, and finally to each other. ... Read more

Reviews

Heartbreaking, Comical and Endearing, January 9, 2005

Nick Flynn's prose in his book "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir" has the feel of a great writer. He is able to capture the essence and flavor of the homeless, the shelters, the life and times of a young man who is trying to find his way.

Nick Flynn's father, Jonathan, told him when he met his father at a homeless shelter, "that life on the streets of Boston was just another bullshit night in suck city". How aptly that must describe life of the homeless. Jonathan was an aimless man looking for the quick buck when he met Nick's mother, Jody. Jody was from an affluent family, and the young man was given many chances by this family to succeed in one business after another. Dad just couldn't make it- alcohol, drugs and lack of responsibility took precedent. Dad left the family, wife and two sons, and left them on their own. He went from job to job, drug to drug, prison to no real life on the outside, and became a homeless person. Nick during this time grew up also looking for drugs and alcohol, and finally cleaned up his act. His mother committed suicide and left him bereft. He saw his dad a couple of times, but they were not successful meetings. Nick went on to become a case worker at a homeless shelter in Boston. His bold writing of life in the shelter gives us a very clear idea of the sadness, humility and humanity that makes up such a life. Into this setting comes Jonathan, the dad. How strange to meet your father at your job, particularly at a homeless shelter. This meeting led to a father/son relationship, of sorts. Nick's brother wanted nothing to do with his father and absolutely refused to see him. Nick is left to form a relationship of sorts; one born out of grief, hate and of course, love. The pattern of the relationship is parental- the son becomes the parent. But during this time Nick learns about his father and mother's life and is able to distill old demons. And, he is able to start his novel.

Nick Flynn has created a large disturbance with this novel. It has been well received because of the story and because of his writing. This novel grabs you, and it is hard to put down. I look at the homeless in a different light. When I walk the streets of Boston, I shall look at the bus stops, "T" station and other areas where homeless congregate in a different manner. This novel is an eye opener, and it deserves unprecedented praise. I shall keep an eye on Nick Flynn- he has a future. Highly recommended, prisrob

Like father, like son, September 3, 2005
Nick Flynn has been dealt a cruel hand. This memoir tells of the author's troubled relationship with his alcoholic father, his mother's suicide, and the tendency of all the family members to get caught up in criminal activities and drug addiction...and to live marginal, unsettled lives. Flynn's father spends many of his adult years living on the streets of Boston. Father and son reconnect because the son works in a homeless shelter. The father claims to be a poet and to have written a ground-breaking novel that Little Brown is prepared to offer him $2 million to publish (or $4 million, depending on the time of day and the degree of his alcoholic grandiosity). The literary connection between father and son is something that seems to haunt and frighten the younger Flynn. In the end, he seems to recognize that he is somehow his father's scribe and that the memoir he is writing is the "story" his father never mananged to get down on paper. "That book somehow fell to me, the son, to write. My father's uncredited, noncompliant ghostwriter. Not enough to be stuck with his body, to be stuck with his name, but to become his secretary, his handmaid, caught up in folly, a doomed project, to write about a book that doesn't, that didn't ever, that may not even , exist" (p. 322).

what is ironic, and somehow true-seeming, is that people who come from the most disengaged families turn out to be the ones who become the most enmeshed with their parents and who come most dangerously close to repeating their parents' mistakes. Flynn has insight to his family dynamics, but this doesn't seem to help him avoid the poinlessness of numbing himself out on drugs and alcohol or from forming anything but superficial, need-based relationships with women. He does seem to progress from open fear and hate of his father to an authentic, but realistic sense of compassion for the man who was never there for him.

ANOTHER NIGHT is pretty much a chronological account of Flynn's experiences, but it is written in various styles. Some of these work nicely and bring a welcome change of pace and infusion of energy to what is otherwise a depressing storyline. In a chapter called "Same Again" he does riffs on the varioius cliches about drinking you are likely to hear in a bar on any given night. The change of genre he does in the chapter "Santa Lear" seemed less successful. Here, he depicts as drama the exchanges between a number of drunks doing seasonal work as Santa Clauses and their "daughters" (social workers?). But overall, Flynn is a keen observer with a writing style that is poetic without being florid or unnecessarily terse. I'm curious to see what he'll produce next.

Raw poignant account of tragic family, January 3, 2006
I can't but echo what so many other reviewers have said in praising Nick Flynn's account of working with the homeless, including his own father from whom he had been separated from early infancy, and with dealing with the impact of his mother's suicide. A unique contribution to our understanding of what it means to be down and out in contemporary America.

Honest and Straight-forward, August 2, 2005
I love Nick Flynn's writing style. He is a poet who has written a book about his life, and mostly about his father's life, who fancies himself a poet also (though the jury is still out on that).

Nick worked in a homeless shelter for years where he ran across his father who was either living on the streets or in the shelter. His father eventually gets a little apartment and Nick visits him occasionally to check up on him. The conversations with his father are hilarious -- although that might not have been the intention.

The book is well written. It does not attempt to make excuses for the father's alcoholism or homelessness. It also doesn't attempt to make excuses for the fact that Nick did not pro-actively get his father off the streets. It simply relays the facts in a straight-foward manner of an off-beat and bizarre life.

Bottom line: Excellent book and quick read. The book reads like poetry; it is beautifully written.

"You will be haunted by this story ...", September 18, 2005

I've just finished page 341, the last page. It's midnight here in these Connemara hills and I can't rest. I'm unsettled. I need to write something about this book. But what? Do I love it? Do I hate it? In the beginning I felt like quitting after every ten pages, then continuing after the next ten pages, and so on, and so on. I felt myself both repulsed and seduced. Eventually I gave in. Gave in to Nick Flynn's words, sentences, story, language, world, universe. The universe of Nick Flynn's disfunctional family: his alcoholic, delusional, absentee father and his suicidal mother, form the foundation of this memoir. In large measure it's a journey in search of his father, a man who lives by his wits, fuelled by alcohol, driven by the delusion/fear of writing the 'Great American Novel' (with a million dollar advance and the Nobel prize certainties in that delusion), to eventual homelessness on the street. It's also Nick Flynn is search of himself. But it's none of the above. It's truly a work of literature that sets out, on every page, to capture, and lose, the mystery of the human condition. It's surreal, a glimpse at a parallel universe that we may all be living. This book finds a kinship with Joyce and Beckett, and it's no wonder that Nick Flynn chooses an excerpt from Beckett's 'Endgame' to open the story: HAMM: Scoundrel! Why did you engender me? NAGG: I don't know. HAMM: What? Why didn't you know? NAGG: That it'd be you.

You will be haunted by this story long after you've finished reading it.

A gritty tale of growing up and reconciliation, December 29, 2005
This memoir is a naked telling of the author's life from childhood to the present, but it's even more about his father, a con man who suffers from delusions of grandeur. Flynn didn't meet his father until the age of 27: the elder Flynn simply left home one day and never came back. Life wasn't easy for him, his older brother and their mother after that.

The void left from the father-son relationship that never was is the primary focus of the volume and even though it's clear that Flynn wants to know and understand his father, he makes no serious moves to be closer to him. Even when the father becomes homeless on the streets of Boston, his son makes no effort to offer him shelter.

Flynn tells his amazing tale in short, episodic bursts, delivering the story in thoughtful, well-executed vignettes. For many years, they are of a young man adrift. Flynn spends summers living in a houseboat, occasionally working construction and in a homeless shelter in the city. Along the way he plies himself with alcohol and experiments with any number of illicit substances. His mother, with whom he has taken to sharing drinks, takes her own life at the end of her struggle with drugs, drink and depression.

One would expect a book like this to be filled with brooding about what could have been, or with guilt or self-doubt. Interestingly, it's not. The author lays out his life and doesn't ask the reader to feel sorry for him. Although a lot of details are sketchy, he speaks as though he has hurt and been hurt in equal measure.

The book is also surprisingly funny in many places, and Flynn's delivery may remind some of the winning wiseacre David Sedaris. While the material is gritty and brutally honest, the writing is so good that it's hard to put down. Highly recommended.

down and dirty title, down and dirty story, November 4, 2005
This is a story, ultimately, of redemption. Flynn's a poet, and the language here is stark and strong. Sometimes he gets a little high-falutin, like the chapter that's all one word sentences, but overall he's not sentimental, and not too tough either-you get the sense that he's just trying to get his book out-and it's probably not a whole lot different that the book that was basically killing his dad all those years.

So many memoirs are out there written by people who don't actually have a story--Flynn does.

the 'get real' version of 'my fractured life'..., July 19, 2005
[...]It's tough to review a book called "Another Bull---t Night in S--k City" without using profanities, you know?

Which brings me to the one lamentable thing about the book: an unfortunate title, which may drive potential readers away from a great read. Though the title prepares you for something like Charles Bukowski, this book is another type of bird, entirely. It is a remarkably decent book written by a conscientious human being who also happens to be a conscientious writer who cares greatly about his craft.

Nick Flynn laces together the frayed ends of his mother's and estranged father's failings, along with desultory tales of his own early carelessness. Life in Boston in the 80's is about keeping afloat. As Nick retreats to living aboard an old pleasure boat, he watches his father steadily sinking in a tide of alcohol abuse. Nick assiduously avoids his father until circumstances bring them together at the Pine Street Inn, a homeless shelter where Nick is employed, and Nick's father becomes a resident.

The irretrievably damaged father, Jonathan Flynn, wanders these pages like Banquo's ghost. Even in his youth a flim-flam man, Jonathan Flynn is not likeable. He is semi-coherent, devious, and deluded, but he is Nick's father and Nick cannot run from him anymore than he could run away from himself. This, then, is the story of Nick's coming to grips with his father, and finding his own purpose.

Nick Flynn's achievement is that he writes what should be a very depressing story in an undepressing way. There is not an ounce of self-pity in these pages, and the words all ring true. The twilight world of the homeless is evoked, with great compassion.

Would that all the clueless 'go-getters' of the world had this book. It would enrich their lives.

A memoir that should be required reading..., June 27, 2007
This memoir should be required reading for any urban dweller - or anyone in the United States for that matter. It is rare that an author so shamelessly portrays the homeless and their plight without editorializing the reasons behind their situation or waxing grandiose or pathetic. It is honest, painful and vivid. I am so thankful to have read this novel.

Harrowing and honest truth, September 27, 2004


Nicholas Flynn is another young man in a long line of children who have lost a parent to the seduction of an alcoholic haze. Like others, Flynn had no intention of following in his father's footsteps, yet he repeats the same youthful indiscretions that lead to alcoholism, all the more anecdotal proof that genetics play an important part from one generation to another, given the right circumstances.

The difference is that the son has found a powerful voice, one that his father aspired to, but lost in the bottom of a bottle. That young Nick nurtured this gift and eventually found his expression is both inspiring and painful, for Nick's own journey has been riddled by the legacy of the alcoholic: loss of identity, confusion, lack of opportunity or resources and the life of a fringe-dweller. This is the legacy of father to son.

Maybe Nick's mother should have recognized Johnathan's flaws when they first met, but he had that charismatic charm so common among talented young men before they succumb to drink. Nick's values are essentially self-taught, a combination of his own escapism and an urge toward survival. No one would blame Nick if he turned away from his father forever, given only those few sparse words and fewer letters over the years. But Nick is not his father; he is a young man with a vast reservoir of compassion, coupled with that faint yearning every boy has to be acknowledged, even loved, by his father.

Nick's journey is one that defies reason and speaks to the core of humanity; his trials are many and grievous, yet he avoids the steep downward spiral Johnathan chooses. One could argue that the path is the same, the son taking the longer road, but in the same direction. Yet Nick's accomplishments prove otherwise.

Harrowingly honest, this memoir is a fast road into the mouth of hell. Many have traveled here to meet their demise, among the flotsam and jetsam of society's rejects. That both father and son remain close to their roots speaks to an early identification of youthful dreams. It is no accident that Nick works in a homeless shelter at a time when his father finally comes within reach. The shelter offers Nick a place to connect with his better self, skirting the edge of his fear of becoming one of these lost men, like Johnathan, whose dreams have turned from hope to lies and distortion.

Nick's life journey is littered with landmines; that he has written such a remarkable testament to self-discovery and the inherent strength of the human spirit, no matter how deeply scarred. Both familiar and real, there are many who know Nick's story intimately. What is remarkable is that such an old tale of self-destruction and the annihilation of family can have a fresh voice to speak yet another truth. This memoir is a gift to others who struggle, like Nick, for a healthy life and family identification. Luan Gaines/2004.
... Read more

Editorial Review

Hundreds of hardy people have tried to carve a living in the Alaskan bush, but few have succeeded as consistently as Heimo Korth. Originally from Wisconsin, Heimo traveled to the Arctic wilderness in his feverous twenties. Now, more than three decades later, Heimo lives with his wife and two daughters approximately 200 miles from civilization -- a sustainable, nomadic life bounded by the migrating caribou, the dangers of swollen rivers, and by the very exigencies of daily existence.

In The Final Frontiersman, Heimo's cousin James Campbell chronicles the Korth family's amazing experience, their adventures, and the tragedy that continues to shape their lives. With a deft voice and in spectacular, at times unimaginable detail, Campbell invites us into Heimo's heartland and home. The Korths wait patiently for a small plane to deliver their provisions, listen to distant chatter on the radio, and go sledding at 44° below zero -- all the while cultivating their hard-learned survival skills that stand between them and a terrible fate.

Awe-inspiring and memorable, The Final Frontiersman reads like a rustic version of the American Dream and reveals for the first time a life undreamed by most of us: amid encroaching environmental pressures, apart from the herd, and alone in a stunning wilderness that for now, at least, remains the final frontier. ... Read more

Reviews

Little House in the Big Arctic, July 16, 2004
James Campbell reports the life of Heimo Korth and the family he has raised, the last family of trappers to remain in the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Although this book has one foot in the "wilderness adventure can you believe anyone can survive this" genre (Heimo regularly traps in -50 weather and even jogs in -20 weather), it is also a kind of domestic family saga, almost a "Little House on the Prairie" but the prairie is the Arctic.

Heimo, his wife Edna, and daughters Rhonda and Krin, face near tragedies and real tragedies lost in blizzards, or facing a broken-down snow machine miles from home, or jumping from ice flow to ice flow in desparate hope of making it back to shore, or falling through overflow ice on the river. Remarkably though, the main thing I'll remember about this book is the sense it conveys of Heimo's redemption (lost and alcoholic, he came to Alaska to trap in the 70s, but dried up and built a family there), and of the love and affection of a family who have no one but each other for months on end. This is a real testament to Campbell's skill as a journalist and author.

The adventure and drama of the Arctic keep the reader turning pages like a good mystery but the after-effect is one of love and integrity.

A fascinating look at an impossibly alien lifestyle, April 17, 2005
Heimo Korth has lived in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for nearly thirty years, eking out a subsistence living some 250 miles from the nearest road. He moved to Alaska at twenty, eager to escape an abusive father and unwilling to submit to the yoke of a nine-to-five job. For six years Heimo ("HI-mow") lived alone, trapping and hunting and flying out occasionally with bush pilots to sell his furs. But in 1982 Heimo married Edna, whom he met while walrus hunting on St. Lawrence Island, and she followed her husband to the wilderness. They have lived together since in this desolate place where the sun dips below the horizon in November and isn't seen again until January, where temperatures range from a balmy 80 degrees to 50 below. They and their daughters live a semi-nomadic life, moving each spring from one of their three cabins to another so as not to deplete the animal populations in any one area. Every summer they spend six weeks in Fort Yukon, population 750, stocking up on supplies and getting a small taste of civilization.

James Campbell, who happens to be Heimo's cousin, visited the Korths several times beginning in 2002. In telling Heimo's story Campbell juxtaposes descriptions of life in the Arctic--the logistics of carving up a dead moose, the efficient reuse of toilet paper as a firestarter--with stories of Heimo's boyhood in Wisconsin and discussion of the politics of land apportionment in Alaska. The result is a fascinating look at a lifestyle that is impossibly alien yet unexpectedly familiar: Heimo's teenagers tack Britney Spears posters to the walls of their cabin.

One begins reading Campbell's account with incredulity, wondering why anyone would choose to live in such an extreme environment and whether the Korths were wise to raise their children there. But reading the fascinating, sometimes heartrending story of Heimo and Edna's life one comes to respect them and their decisions. We are left hoping that Heimo manages to live out his days as he wishes, growing old in a wilderness few men before him have experienced.

Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

A Must Read!, August 16, 2004
This book is so wonderfully written. James Campbell breathes so much life in every word and every paragraph, that it is one of those rare books that is hard to put down. My husband couldn't believe that I would be so taken in by a story about the wilderness.

Yet, the character development; the smooth writing style that describes the trials and hardships; all of the history that I learned made this such a three dimensional and rare treat. If only James Campbell had other books that I could purchase!

I read a ton of books and this is one of the few that I will definitely recommend to everyone that I know.

Welcome To The World Of 40 Below, June 18, 2004
What would you do if it were 40 below and your snowmobile conked out 15 miles from your cabin?

After reading this book you will understand that the answer is simple. You'd die. End of story.

This is the tale of a real world tough guy who at a young age gave himself over to the pursuit of wilderness survival and is about the only one left out there with survival skills of this level.

The author is no wimp either, spending considerable time with Mr. Korth plus doing mega-research on the history of the Alaskan wilderness, which he weaves into the story in an informing, non-boring way.

When I read Into The Wild I somehow thought that the fellow that died just had a few unlucky breaks-like the river rising which trapped him out in that old bus. Wrong. That guy never stood a chance from day one, and this book shows you why.

Like a lot of guys I have always had two fantasies - living in the backwoods of Alaska or living on a remote tropical island. I heartily thank the author for paring my fantasy list down to one - the island.

not girly but you'll love it, June 1, 2004
This isn't really my genre but when i started reading this story I couldn't put it down. It is incredibly inspiring and touching. It will touch your life and influence you in a positive way: a little like the book, Seabiscuit. It was educational too. It would be wonderful for children in difficult financial or familial situations to read. I can't stop talking about it and I can't put it down.

Extreme Camping, May 31, 2004
For those of you who enjoy the outdoors, this is a well-written story about what may be the last pure subsistence family in North America. Ten thousand years ago we were all this way; now we are down to one man, his wife, and two daughters living in the remote bush of Alaska, eating mostly meat and surviving in a shack too small for most lawn tractors in the lower 48. While this may sound grim, it is usually not. It isn't paranoia but rather a pioneering spirit and awe for the natural world that compels this lifestyle (if "lifestyle" doesn't overly trivialize three decades in the bush living mostly on wild game and facing environmental extremes usually associated with other planets). The author is a good writer, the subjects of the story remarkable and sympathetic, and the pace of the narrative usually brisk. Definitely worth reading.

Great Adventure!, September 24, 2004
I'm amazed with people who can forgo safety and creature comforts to set out to explore the world. Since I'm too timid for such things myself, I love to read about people who aren't. James Campbell's book was a great and easy read. I fell in love with Heimo Korth and his family and ended up envying their beautiful, simple and dangerous life.

If you ever wanted to live in the Alaskan bush..., October 31, 2004
Thank you James Campbell for your persistence in bringing the story of Heimo Korth and family to the world. Very few of us will ever experience the Alaskan wilderness beyond the tether of a cruise ship or the reach of a town. However, only in The Final Frontiersman have I been able to sense the tremendous strength of will and character it takes for someone to live, really live, longtime in the Alaska bush.

If you want to look over the shoulder of someone who has created a life in one of the most challenging environments in the world, then this is a must read for you.

Fantastic Voyage!, July 23, 2004
Whether you are an armchair traveler or an active trekker, James Cambell's book The Final Frontiersman is a must read.

The author is a journalist who can really write, and he takes the reader to where few people will ever travel, and guides us where he really did travel to visit the trapper Heimo Korth and his family in a world that is more awe inspiring, life threatening, and wonderous than any that has been chronicled in modern times.

Wear warm socks when you read this!

Excellent, unsentimental tale of subsistence in Alaska, June 16, 2004

Comparisons will be drawn between this book and Krakauer's excellent Into the Wild based on the common themes of living off the land and the unforgivingness of the Alaskan wilderness. Where Krakauer's book is a meditation on the romanticism and perils of self-reliance, The Final Frontiersman is an unsentimental and penetrating look at the physical, emotional and psychological challenges of making a living in this remote and and unforgiving environment.


Heimo Korth, his wife and two daughters and the life they lead are fascinating. Campbell's well-constructed narrative makes exciting and evocative reading.


If Chris McCandless, the subject of Krakauer's book, had had the chance to read this book, he might still be alive today. ... Read more