Book Description
Meredith Hall's moving but unsentimental memoir begins in 1965, when she becomes pregnant at sixteen. Shunned by her insular New Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by her mother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hiding her before they finally banish her altogether. After giving her baby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the Middle East, where she survives by selling her possessions and finally her blood. She returns to New England and stitches together a life that encircles her silenced and invisible grief. When he is twenty-one, her lost son finds her. Hall learns that he grew up in gritty poverty with an abusive fatherâin her own father's hometown. Their reunion is tender, turbulent, and ultimately redemptive. Hall's parents never ask for her forgiveness, yet as they age, she offers them her love. What sets Without a Map apart is the way in which loss and betrayal evolve into compassion, and compassion into wisdom.
"Meredith Hall boldly charts one of the bravest of stories, the journey from disrupted youth up through that most tricky and forbidding territory, the family circle. Bone-honest and strong in its every line, this work of memory is a remarkably deep retrieval of its times and souls, thereby reflecting our own."
âIvan Doig, author of Heart Earth
"This is an unusually elegant memoir that feels as though its been carved straight out of Meredith Hall's capacious heart. The story is riveting, the words perfect. It is rare to read a work that manages to be at once artful and compelling, which for me best describes Meredith Hall's debut work. She is an author who deserves to be widely read. Few people write like this. Fewer still have the courage to live like this Рwithout the comfort of any clich̩."
âLauren Slater, author of Opening Skinner's Box, Prozac Diary, and Welcome to My Country
"Meredith Hall's long journey from an inexcusably betrayed girlhood to the bittersweet mercies of womanhood is a triple triumphâof survival; of narration; and of forgiveness. Her portrait of her own empty bravado collapsing into total psychological and geographical dislocation is one of the most harrowing passages I've ever read. The subsequent turn toward memory and honesty is agonized, profound, and salvific. Without a Map is a masterpiece."
âDavid James Duncan, author of The Brothers K and God Laughs and Plays
"Meredith Hall is like a geiger counter ticking along the radium edge of these recent decades. She gives us self as expert-witnessâWithout a Map is smart, sharp, and redemptively honest. "
âSven Birkerts, author of The Gutenberg Elegies and My Sky Blue Trades
"Meredith Hall's story of loss, shame, and betrayal is also a story of joy, reconnection, and survival; each memory takes us deep to the marrow of sorrow and celebration. A work of extraordinary beauty and grace."
âKim Barnes, author of In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country
"Without A Map tells an important and perceptive story about loss, about aloneness and isolation in a time of great need, about a life slowly coming back into focus and the calm that finally emerges. Meredith Hall is a brave new writer who earns our attention."
âAnnie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
"Think for a moment of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, of banishment, reconciliation, redemption, and you'll get the scope of Without a Map, the new memoir by Meredith Hall . . . An extraordinary tale, made all the more moving by Hall's unsentimental prose and ample heart."
âgettrio.com
"a compelling, painful, hopeful story." âmore.com
"Meredith Hall's magnificent book held me in its thrall from the moment I began reading the opening pages. WITHOUT A MAP is a fluid, beautifully-written, hard-won piece of work that belongs on the shelf next to the best modern memoirs, and yet is in a category all its own. It is a moving example of a difficult life redeemed first through examination, then reflection, then finallyâlike a rough stone polished until it gleamsâinto a genuine work of art."
âDani Shapiro, author of Family History
"Hall, a brave and graceful writer who teaches at UNH, examines her life with wide open eyes and an equally open heart. Even as she wrestles with the grief of many lossesâher child, her parents' love and respect, her standing in her community, her identityâshe demonstrates the writer's gift of separating from her own experiences, establishing an objectivity that allows her to make meaning for herself and readers."
âRebecca Rule, Nashua Telegraph
"Open adoptions and connections between birth mothers and their children were not the way of life for a young girl who got pregnant in the '60s. Meredith Hall, in her beautifully written, poignant memoir, tells us what life was like for a naive girl who found herself pregnant and abandoned by her mother and father. This is a tale of loss, of endless traveling in search of an intangible something, and, ultimately, of forgiveness."
âGayle Shanks, Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe, AZ
"Hall's sensitive, honest account of her personal odyssey shows one remarkable woman transcending this trauma to become a better, stronger person."
âWendy Smith, AARP The Magazine
"Hall's life, as depicted in this memoir, was nothing if not two thingsâdifficult and fascinating. With no family, friends or other support system, she took her life into her own hands at an early, tender age, and she fell quite far before finally rising up. The reader gets the benefit of her trials, a gritty view of the world from America to Europe to the Middle East."
âINtake Weekly
"Without a Map tells a stunning story of exile and ostracization. Meredith grew up on the seacoast of New Hampshire and became pregnant at age 16, in 1965. Her memoir is a rare and clear glimpse into the social mores of the mid 60's, and reveals the state of shame many families faced when an unmarried daughter became pregnant."
âLiz Bulkley, Host of "The Front Porch," NH Public Radio
"Appalling and infuriating, yet uplifting and inspiring, Without A Map pulls you into Hall's personal experience of sudden rejection and expulsion from her only sources of sustenance and connection. As an adoptive parent I cried and cheered for her through her exile and return to a very different home. Meredith Hall is a hero of awesome courage and eloquence."
âFrank Kramer, Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA
"[Without a Map] is a searing memoir about loss, betrayal, love and, in some measure, reconciliation. It has already brought Hall a celebrity that surprises her: stories in People, Oprah and Elle, an interview on National Public Radio, brisk sales in a crowded marketplace. It is on the extended New York Times bestseller list. What is arresting about this memoir is the world it reveals."
âMike Pride, Concord Monitor
"Without a Map, is so well written that it was hard for me to accept that the book had to end."
âTina Ristau, The Des Moines Register
"Painfully honest and beautifully writtenâ¦Meredith Hall has managed to distill courage from raw pain, and then somehow write this gem of a book about the experienceâ¦A stunning bookâ¦You must read it."
âLola Furber, Maine Women's Journal
"Fans of Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle should take note of Meredith Hall's memoir, heartbreaking and ultimately heartwarming..."
âMary Cotton, owner of Newtonville Books, Newton TAB
Customer Reviews:
One girl's story...........2007-09-24
Meredith Hall's memoir is one girl's story of unplanned pregnancy (and its aftermath), told and retold over the generations. A cautionary tale here for young women--one brief lapse in judgement can ripple through the rest of one's life, the awful price paid over and over and over again. I appreciated Ms. Hall's willingness to share her painful story, although much was left out that would have helped frame things more clearly for the reader, i.e. how her placement of a child for adoption affected her marriage (was there one?), did it affect her second and third pregnancies, etc. For further reading about the adoption process pre-1970's, check out the excellent "The Girls Who Went Away."
Awareness.......2007-09-23
What I enjoyed the most about this book was the awareness that it brings. America has painted a fairy-tale image of adoption, and this book reveals the fact that not all children are given a "better life" with another family. Meredy's son was one of those people. Forced to give him up at the age of 17, Meredy, like many birth mothers of this time, wasn't given much detail about where her baby ended up. It was portrayed to her that he was given to a good home in Virginia. Instead, the truth (that would come out over 20 years later) was that he was given to an abusive family just a mile away from her father's home.
Hall is an excellent writer. The way this story is written makes you feel as though you are living in the times and culture that the author faced. It is unfortunate that her parents' lack of guidance contributed to the situation that she faced. Instead of facing the responsibility they in turn rejected her just as harshly as her child was taken from her.
It is a sad, emotional story marked by an ending of peace and reconcile and forgiveness for the family that did not provide a better childhood for her son.
WOW.......2007-09-19
I thought the beginning was good. But then the book just got better and better. It was much more than expected, unfortunately for Ms. Hall. All I can say, is WOW!
Moving and touched close to home.......2007-09-19
This book changed her life forever. With no choice on whether to relinquish her baby for adoption, she was left with an indescribable emptiness that could not be filled. It was a heartfelt book written with painful honesty and love. It is a book that was hard to put down.
OH, THOSE TERRIBLE 50S-60S!!.......2007-09-19
When I was reading this book about Meredith Hall growing up in the 50s and 60s, and suddenly faced with pregnancy at age 16, her pain and confusion and utter despair were palpable to me! I had to stop several times to cry..... In places, it was almost unbearably sad. She was so naive, and her parents were so wrapped up in their own lives as to be uninterested in her or any growing-up, adolescent problems she might have. I know, because I grew up at the same time, in the same circumstances. I knew girls who got pregnant at a very young age, and whether they kept their babies or gave them up for adoption (abortion was not an option then), their lives were never the same, and they carried a painful, heavy burden. Some still do.
In this book, however, something happens in the writing that causes it to lose veracity. Maybe because it was not written as a book, but rather chapters were written for other publications and then everything was put together to form this book. For whatever reason, it began to feel like a lot of short pieces strung together. There are lots of unanswered questions at the end of the book. Such as, who is the father of the two sons that she was able to keep? Whatever became of the father of her first baby? It appears she currently lives on a farm of sorts, yet teaches writing in a university, none of which is ever touched upon. Why has she become so self-indulgent after a lifetime of never, ever being able to speak up for herself? Something doesn't ring ture with the last third of the book.
Be that as it may, it does stand as a testament to the girls who became pregnant in those days. All choices were terrible! And I never knew, or heard about, any parent or any adult having any understanding or empathy for these girls, let alone trying to help them through the pregnancy or help them get on with their lives after the pregnancy. Never! And that is a very sad testament to the kinds of parents who were raising children in the 50s and 60s. Very sad.
I am glad that the author's life has worked out so well. I am sorry that she felt she had to include the chapter on killing the chickens, because I think that's where she lost me. She and her young sons had named them. Then she killed them with her bare hands. And then she laid them out for her sons to see. Terrible! It took a while for me to get that picture out of my mind..... during which time I had to put the book down and go on to something else. And when I got back to this book, it was hard to care as much. And I had just finished reading the delightful LITTLE HEATHENS by Mildred Kalish and she writes a lot about killing chickens and such goings on on her farm in the 30s and 40s, but never as tasteless and crass as the description in this book.
I wanted to love this book all the way through, but sadly I couldn't. However, I am giving it 4 stars because the first part of the book is so powerful.
Average customer rating:
- The Face Of Eternity and The Mind Of God
- Our Town, a short yet entertaining read that captures the several stages of life.
- Our Town utilizes simplicity to its max
- Small Town America
- much more than nothing
|
Our Town: A Play in Three Acts (Perennial Classics)
Thornton Wilder
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 United States
| Drama
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Wilder, Thornton
| ( W )
| Playwrights, A-Z
| Drama
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Drama
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Wilder, Thornton
| ( W )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Theater
| Performing Arts
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Fiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
The Glass Menagerie
-
A Raisin in the Sun
-
Death of a Salesman (Penguin Plays)
-
Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck Centennial Edition)
-
The Great Gatsby
ASIN: 0060512636
Release Date: 2003-09-23 |
Book Description
A handsome Perennial Classics edition of America's favourite play, Our Town, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
First produced and published in 1938, this Pulitzer Prize–winning drama of life in the small village of Grover's Corners has become an American classic and is Thornton Wider's most renowned and most frequently performed play.
This Perennial Classics edition includes a foreword by Donald Margulies and contains an afterword with documentary material edited by Tappan Wilder.
Customer Reviews:
The Face Of Eternity and The Mind Of God.......2007-10-04
By most accounts Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) considered himself a teacher rather than a writer--a curious situation given than he won numerous literary awards, including three Pulitzers. Among these prize-winners was OUR TOWN, first staged in 1938. It is generally considered to be the single most famous play written by an American author, and Samuel French Inc., which holds the amateur performance rights, states that it is performed at least once a day somewhere in the world, as popular abroad as at home.
The play is perhaps most widely known for the way in which it is staged. The stage is bare. A few chairs, stools, tables, and ladders are used to indicate a kitchen, a bed room window, a soda fountain, a cemetery and other locations; the actors mime use of imaginary glasses, plates, bowls, satchels, and boxes.
The story is equally simple. The first act introduces us to the town, Grover's Corners in New Hampshire, seen in the early years of the 20th Century--and most particularly to the Gibbs and Webb families, who live next door to each other. The second act finds boy-next-door George and girl-next-door Emily marrying, and a flash-black shows the audience how their romance began. It is a simple tale, full of details of small town life, church choir on Wednesday night, milk delivered fresh each morning, breakfast to be made, chickens to be fed--and slowly, as the action moves forward, we are drawn into this simple way of life and its seemingly endless and trivial repetitions.
Wilder swirls a number of themes throughout the work, themes that are simple yet profound, details of the particular and the universal--and these gather suddenly, unexpectedly in the third and final act, which comes as a shock after the charming ease of the play. Emily has died in childbirth and she takes her place in the cemetery among the dead, all of whom patiently wait and watch for something which is not yet clear, the minutes passing one by one into eternity, their memories of life fading into nothingness, a portrait of darkness that is yet somehow still seeded with light. It is here that Wilder makes his ultimate statement: who are you when you have been shorn of all earthly details and devices? Where do you exist within the mind of God?
Many non-theatre people find playscripts difficult to read, and in truth playscripts are a blueprint for directors and actors and not intended as reading material for the general public. This is preface to the very basic statement that some plays "read" well and some do not--and that this is not necessarily an indication of how the play actually performs. On the page, OUR TOWN reads a bit flat; it seems a shade obvious, a shade ordinary. On the stage, however, it easily one of the most delicately beautiful constructs imaginable, a play which demonstrates the beauty and value of each life--no matter how ordinary it may be. Remarkable stuff and strongly recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Our Town, a short yet entertaining read that captures the several stages of life........2007-06-12
Thorton Wilder's short play, "Our Town," follows the lives of two close knit families, experiencing the different stages of life: birth, childhood, adulthood and death. I recommend anyone to read this play just so they can have the opportunity to read about the phases that others go through. For example, the story mentions the common worries, concerns and yearnings of parent Mrs.Gibbs, who wishes to take a break from the stressful life of being a mother yet she is held back by the contrasting wishes and aspirations of her husband. "Our Town" is filled with amusing yet relatable events of being disciplined by your parents, which remind us of our childhood, such as when George is admonished by his father. Another interesting tale unfolds as we witness a young relationship between George and Emily flourish into a marriage. Their entertaining anxieties while dating, and even getting married, are humorous and thought provoking for young readers. Unexpected turns of events and sudden losses conclude the story, leaving an important message for the reader which is, care and treasure your loved ones while you still can.
Our Town utilizes simplicity to its max.......2007-06-12
One significant feature of this play is its simplicity in both plot and props. While it carries great meaning throughout, the story does not feature any extreme, earth-shattering events. Instead, it presents the plain, daily occurrences in a normal small town, allowing the reader to follow the story in a simple context. In addition, although the reader undergoes a different experience than the play-goer, it is evident to all that the conspicuous lack of props is a prominent element that further emphasizes the simplicity of the story.
In three acts, Our Town presents a complete view of three different stages of life: daily life, love and marriage, and death. The play focuses on two families, the Gibbs and Webb families, yet it gives a panoramic view of many townspeople's lives in Grover's Corners. More specifically, the play follows the relationship between Emily Webb and George Gibbs. We first witness them in their youth, as they realize their passion for each other. The story then skips forward to their marriage and finally to Emily's death, as she is finally able to witness her life without actually worrying about daily demands. When she is finally allowed to witness life in her town pass by as a spectator, Emily falls into a heavy regret at her wasted life, as she realizes that nobody takes the time to truly look at each other.
Stressing the importance of the simple, daily wonders of the world, Thornton Wilder underscores the appreciation of life due to both its brevity and its inherent beauty. The third act is truly epochal, as it presents the general purpose of the play through the death of Emily; as she relives her 12th birthday, she realizes that no one cares to really appreciate each other or their own lives. Emily, as with every other citizen in town, is too concerned with her own life that she is unable to see the beauty of it, and she ends up missing the most seemingly trivial of things afterwards, such as sleeping and taking baths. Wilder, by contrasting Emily's life with her death, demonstrates the consequences of falling into a state of content and complacency with one's life; instead of blindly following a routinely schedule everyday, Wilder teaches the audience that they must be grateful for the daily wonders of life, as they may be gone the next day.
This is not a good book for those seeking entertaining and action-packed plots. Truthfully, I did not enjoy reading this book until I understood the meaning in the final act. At first glance, the play seems to drag on, depicting the mundane lives of ordinary people. Yet when I got to the third act, I realized that this is exactly how Wilder wanted us to feel: bored in the first two acts at the seemingly simple things in life, yet remorseful in the last act due to the intrinsic ungratefulness of our lives. Anyone looking for play with a relevant, significant message to everyone's lives should pick up this book immediately.
Small Town America.......2007-06-12
Wilder's Our Town was by far one of the strangest books I have ever read. It was a pretty good book. Set in typical Small Town, USA, Wilder explores how humans understand and under-appreciate the notion of time. The first act is typical, the second act is special, and the third act is monumental. Wilder's style is slightly odd, because when I first read the play, I couldn't completely understand his purpose. It was when I read it the second time I understood that he was criticizing how we as people never understand how to love the lives that we have. It's the lesson we are taught all the time, yet we never seem to take to heart. I know that all plays were meant to be seen rather than read, but this is the only play I've read where I feel that the only way to grasp the author emotion is to actually see the play instead of reading the book. Still, it was worth the read.
much more than nothing.......2007-06-12
When first reading this play, it may appear to be about nothing more than the every day life in an ordinary town. However, it is much more than that. This town is representative of any little town in all of America and its actions as something that could have been done anywhere. These simple facts expand the scopes of this play to new heights. It is not just a play about the little events that occur in a small time but is rather representative of life as a whole. Each act represents a stage in life: "Daily Life," "Marriage" and "Death." These words take on new meaning though as the daily life seems so dull that no one would ever want to live there, yet hardly anyone leaves; the marriage is somewhat pushed on George and Emily; and finally, Emily dies along with many other characters who are seen as being more "alive" than any of the living characters in this play. It takes on many unique points of view and teaches many lessons, making it necessary to take it apart completely. The most incredible part is that all of this is contained in a book about "nothing."
One major thing that is pointed out in this play is that people walk through life without ever really seeing anything, and this is shown on many an occasion, not really being noticed until it is too late to do anything about. People that are alive do not have the worries that life will be short because they are still living it. They do not worry about spending each second like it was their last because it is not. They live life on a day to day basis, not worrying about whether or not they live it to its fullest because there will always be more time. The worst part is that life could end at any minute. And when that person has not lived a full enough life, they will have no one to blame but themselves for not appreciating it when they had it. It is often said that people do not miss things until they are gone, and this is one more example. If only people could miss it when they still had it, then losing it would not be such a tragedy because they would have been happy either way.
Book Description
The creator of Animal House at last tells the real story ofthe fraternity that inspired the iconic film--a story far more outrageous(and funny!) than any movie could ever capture.Animal House, the film adaptation of stories Chris Miller published inNational Lampoon about his experiences at a Dartmouth fraternity, is amongthe most beloved and successful comedies of all time. In fact, itsportrayal of college party life is still imitated on campuses across thecountry--toga party, anyone?Now, nearly 30 years after the movie hit theaters, there are no taboosleft, and Chris Miller can finally answer the fans who all want to know onething: Was it really like that? The answer: Yes--but much, much more out ofcontrol! Here, for the first time, are the real stories of Alpha Delta Phi.Like the one about the frat brother who entertained the house by lightinghis hair on fire--not the hair on his head, however. Or about the pledgewho trick-or-treated around campus in a very revealing jack-o-lanterncostume. Or about initiation night when a frozen hot dog became verypainful for two rushes.Wild and hilarious, THE REAL ANIMAL HOUSE is a must-read for any fan of thefilm and anyone who remembers their college days as a blur of great partiesand solid friendship.
Customer Reviews:
More Quaint Than Depraved.......2007-05-03
I discovered National Lampoon in 1987, at a time when the magazine was in decline and well on its way to becoming a brand tag for C-grade movies starring Paris Hilton. But there was enough residual genius left in the magazine to change my life. That year, at age 15, I read a story by Chris Miller with the ever-subtle title of "C--k Tales." It was so fabulously wrong that I sent in my subscription card that same day.
Connoisseurs of gleeful depravity might get a chuckle or two out of this book, but it doesn't pack the same punch as his early NatLamp material. Maybe it's a matter of context -- in the '70s and '80s, d-jokes and target vomiting weren't as overmined as they are today. But compared to South Park and the amazing first "Jackass" movie, Miller's stories appear more quaint than depraved.
More Pathetic than "Depraved".......2007-04-29
The very fact that "awesomely" appears in the subtitle as if it were an acceptable adjective of the English language should have been enough to dissuade me from picking up this book. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I compounded that error by reading the entire book.
It was not that the book is in any way compelling, fascinating, or even humorously entertaining. I continued reading it far beyond my usual tolerance for a dull narrative and poorly developed characters, and despite the persistence of the author's infantile egocentrism which, unfortunately, pervades the entire book from beginning to end.
The book recounts Miller's supposedly "depraved" college fraternity experience. Far from being "awesomely depraved," the characters mostly stand around in the fraternity house basement... talking. Miller describes this standing around talking business as wildly entertaining, something that he finds so compelling he can't wait to get back to that basement so that he can, well, stand around talking again. And again.
This standing around talking plot goes on and on, literally ad nauseum, since he also tells us how important it is to copiously vomit on demand, and how proud he was to have mastered this dubious social skill.
Miller recounts for us the thrill of drinking beer to intoxication, as if getting drunk were a wildly perverse activity that he and his band of fraternity brothers alone-unlike all the rest of the obviously sober college students the world over- had discovered, tested, and perfected for the good of all mankind.
There is nothing "depraved" here, unless your idea of depravity includes the severly upset stomachs of fledgling alcoholic narcissists so sadly dysfunctional they wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting into a good school if they had to compete with the high school class of 2007.
I suppose I kept reading because I was waiting for the turning point in which the author would describe his transition from childish egocentric to integrated human being. That payoff is never delivered and I was left to assume that Chris Miller sincerly looks back on his happy days of drunken vomiting with wistful nostalgia.
This memoir lacks even the skimpiest scrap of insight. The author never offers us even the slightest wince of regret at having spent his entire college career in what he himself describes as an intoxicted obsession with booze and... more booze.
This memoir is neither "depraved" nor the slightest bit funny. It is wiltingly sad and pathetic.
Don't waste your time.
Jovial and Depraved.......2007-03-13
Well, I certainly laughed, but I was also disgusted. This is not a book for the faint of stomach. Miller uses composite characters and features many stories that sound exaggerated, begging the question - how much of this 'real' version of the animal house saga is actually r e a l? Ultimately, it does not necessarily matter, because the content is engaging and funny either way.
As a current member of a Dartmouth fraternity I was able to relate to the setting, and some of the plot-lines This actually accounted for much of my enjoyment of the work as a whole. I would therefor note that those not connected to Dartmouth and not interested in perverse college humor should stay away (Dartmouth was the draw for me, not the perversion).
Excellent Book!.......2007-03-08
I loved this book from front to back. It is truly an amazing read; I suggest it to anybody who's looking for a good read and laugh!
Really Funny, With Broad Appeal.......2007-02-20
I strongly recommend this funny and important book. Chris Miller parts the Big Green curtain to reveal a hitherto unknown world.
This possibly true memoir recounts the 1960-61 academic year at Dartmouth College, the only Ivy League school in the woods. Popular culture was taking a breather between the Beat Generation and the Hippie era. Undergrads were not yet politicized. Female students were over a decade away. As author Miller writes, "...there was nothing to do but get drunk and break things."
Actually, there was a lot more to do as the book reveals. This is a must read for fans of
* The iconic film, "Animal House." This is Holy Scripture to that film.
* White male college behavior. Miller is the Godfather of Frat Lit.
* The memoir genre. Think "Running with Beer."
* Screenplays. "The Real Story of Animal House" demonstrates source material that one can mine for that million-dollar screenplay. Cheaper than going to a Robert McKee seminar, too.
* Understanding why your man still behaves the way he does.
This Coming of Age novel sits on my bookshelf next to "Catcher in the Rye," Kafka's "Metamorphosis," Dylan Thomas' "Adventures in the Skin Trade" and Phillip Roth's "Civilization and Its Discontents." (This last novella was expanded by Roth and renamed "Portnoy's Complaint.")
Book Description
Bestselling author Suzanne Brockmann blends high adventure, harrowing drama, and heart-racing passion into thrilling novels of suspense. Whether tackling danger or wrestling with desire, her elite heroes and heroines never fail to give their all, in stories that soar above and beyond expectations. Now, in her electrifying new novel, Brockmann takes us INTO THE STORM.
In a remote, frozen corner of New Hampshire, a Navy SEAL team and the elite security experts of Troubleshooters, Incorporated are going head-to-head as fierce but friendly rivals in a raid-and-rescue training exercise. Despite the frigid winter temperatures, tension smolders between veteran SEAL Petty Officer Mark “Jenk” Jenkins and former cop turned Troubleshooter Lindsey Fontaine after an impulsive night goes awry. And then, suddenly, Tracy Shapiro, the Troubleshooters’ new receptionist, vanishes while playing the role of hostage during a mock rescue operation.
Teaming up with the FBI to launch a manhunt in the treacherous wilderness, Jenk and Lindsey must put aside their feelings as a record snowstorm approaches, dramatically reducing any hope of finding Tracy alive. The trail is colder than the biting New England climate until a lucky break leads to a horrifying discovery–a brutally murdered young woman wearing the jacket Tracy wore when she disappeared. Suddenly there is a chilling certainty that Tracy has fallen prey to a serial killer–one who knows the backwoods terrain and who doesn’t play by the rules of engagement.
In a race against time, a raging blizzard, and a cunning opponent, Jenk and Lindsey are put to the ultimate test. Rising everything, they must finally come together in a desperate attempt to save Tracy–and each other.
Customer Reviews:
Suspense and drama plus.......2007-09-19
An all too beleivable story of a monster who prays on women aligned with complex relationships with men and women working toghether in mutual respect. Another character appears weak and inadequate but becomes the heroine when in desperate circumstances. At times horrific and yet compelling, a change from the usual Brockmann style that works brilliantly.
Terrific.......2007-09-10
Suzanne Brockmann is one of my favorite authors. As always this book was very suspenseful and romantic.
ICK!!!.......2007-08-25
Great writing, as usual, but I had to skip a lot of the gruesome details. I just can't read about yucky serial murderers and all the details, well-written though they might be. Otherwise, a good read!
A new kind of story.......2007-08-16
Sometimes it seems as if there are no new stories, and this one definitely is not, but it keeeps your attention. Brockman uses a familiar story tactic that begins with two seemingly unconnected story lines. Each separate storyline is so distinct, that the reader cannot imagine how they will ever come together. In fact, the reader is kept guessing about how they will intertwine right up until the end. When they do come together, it is quite a surprise. There are so many characters and love interests, that I found it confusing and kept mixing up who was dating/seeing whom. The story is a lot like Hannibal lecter, but not nearly as good. The love stuff gets in the way and really isn't necessary. All in all, it was a page turner and I will definitely look for other books by Brockmann.
Suspense and mystery - 5 stars; Romance - 3 stars.......2007-08-13
This tale of SEAL Mark Jenkins and Troubleshooter and ex-cop Lindsey Fontaine had some humorous and touching moments in the romance but both of them were rather insecure and immature for their ages. I prefer the romance of Jane and Cosmos in "Hot Target" much more!
The practice exercises and the hunt for the serial killer were the more interesting parts of the story. NOTE: The synopsis on the back of the paperback is NOT correct. It implies that Mark and Lindsey have their first contact in New Hampshire while it is really back in California. I found that irritating.
This is a very scary serial killer who reminds me of some of James Patterson's better villains in his Alex Cross earlier novels. Not to give away anything but if you pay attention to the details, this murderer rivals some of the best (worst?) that I've read about.
Read it more for the mystery and SEAL vs. Troubleshooters, Inc. fun.
Average customer rating:
- truly amazing
- A different type of novel
- Dark and disturbing yet no one seems to notice...
- Working my way back to you, Babe, with a Happiness that Died
- From darkness into ...more darkness
|
The Rules of Attraction
Bret Easton Ellis
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| 18th Century
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| African American
| Asian American
| Classics
| Collections & Readers
| Drama
| General
| Hispanic
| History & Criticism
| Humor
| Jewish American
| Letters & Correspondence
| Native American
| Poetry
| Short Stories
| Women Writers
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Ellis, Bret Easton
| ( E )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Fiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Less Than Zero
-
American Psycho
-
Glamorama (Vintage Contemporaries)
-
The Informers
-
Lunar Park
ASIN: 067978148X
Release Date: 1998-06-30 |
Book Description
Set at a small, affluent liberal-arts college in New England at the height of the Reagan 80s,
The Rules of Attraction is a startlingly funny, kaleidoscopic novel about three students with no plans for the future--or even the present--who become entangled in a curious romantic triangle. Bret Easton Ellis trains his incisive gaze on the kids at self-consciously bohemian Camden College and treats their sexual posturings and agonies with a mixture of acrid hilarity and compassion while exposing the moral vacuum at the center of their lives.
Lauren changes boyfriends every time she changes majors and still pines for Victor who split for Europe months ago and she might or might not be writing anonymous love letter to ambivalent, hard-drinking Sean, a hopeless romantic who only has eyes for Lauren, even if he ends up in bed with half the campus, and Paul, Lauren's ex, forthrightly bisexual and whose passion masks a shrewd pragmatism. They waste time getting wasted, race from Thirsty Thursday Happy Hours to Dressed To Get Screwed parties to drinks at The Edge of the World or The Graveyard.
The Rules of Attraction is a poignant, hilarious take on the death of romance.
Customer Reviews:
truly amazing.......2007-09-09
this book was by far, one of ellis' most breath taking novels. "the rules of attraction" took on what is now modern day college life and what happens in college. it is full of disturbing, funny, violent and dark image that you will think of over and over again. when you read the book and get to the ending you will wish the book never ended and be angry how it ended. Rock and roll
A different type of novel.......2007-06-12
Many people dislike this book and deride its lack of cohesion and unsympathetic characters. However, like most of Ellis' work, The Rules of Attraction uses snippets of characters' lives to tell the story of a community, or at least of a group. This book does not have the obsessiveness of American Psycho, and it is somewhat subtler, but it again uses the shallow desires and thoughts of it's characters to paint a picture of a group of college kids at a small liberal arts school, and it allows the reader a glimpse into parts of the mind not usually devoted to in novels. If you are a fan of Ellis, you will like this book.
Dark and disturbing yet no one seems to notice..........2007-02-12
After reading the impressive `Less than Zero' I was compelled to move right along to `The Rules of Attraction' and I am so glad that I did. Already accustomed to Ellis' writing style I was immediately drawn into his sophomore novella, engrossed in every chapter, every character and every embellishment of college life complete with all its highs and lows. Following the same formula as he had with `Less than Zero', `The Rules of Attraction' really has no story to tell. It's just the random lives of a handful of college students as they wallow through their lives one day at a time.
The novella covers quite a few heavy subjects including drug addiction, suicide and abortion, but everything is discussed and explained in such blunt almost sarcastic dialog that it's not really `heavy'. It's obvious to the reader that the circumstances and consequences of actions are of less and less importance to the parties involved and it adds a layer of realism to each character. I say realism, and that may sound odd, but it's really not. All too often novels and films over-dramatize subjects and to me that takes away from the gritty realism of the circumstances. Bret here capitalizes on the pure simplicity of the average teen's mind and it works wonders.
The novella discusses quite a few students, but three in particular are explored deeper than others. Sean Bateman is in love with Lauren Hynde who is still waiting for Victor to return from Europe. Paul Denton is becoming more and more obsessed with Sean while he's still mourning the loss of his ex-boyfriend Mitchell to the arms of a WOMAN named Candace who just so happens to have a thing for Sean. You may think it sounds like your average teen pining for love and affection but you're wrong. It's much more than that.
Littered with sarcasm and wit yet layered with eventual sadness and desperation, `The Rules of Attraction' manages to flush out humanity in every sentence. From the uncomfortable car ride home after an abortion to the dramatic and heartbreaking suicide, as mentioned, there is quite a bit of `heavy' material contained in this small book, but reader be warned that the characters involved will not feel as deeply disturbed by the outcomes as you will. Any fan of the film will feel even more fulfilled after reading Ellis' brilliant novella and will find it amusing how Victor's European escapade has been literally translated word for word into the film.
Working my way back to you, Babe, with a Happiness that Died.......2007-02-01
Question: It's the big night, the Dress to get Screwed Party---what should you wear? Answer: Nothing, you clown!
Oh God---don't be that way. Get away from that Keg---it's running on empty, anyway---and come sit over here. Out of the way. All of Carlton Hall is filled with these drug-addled idiots, stoners, sycophants, axe-murders & junkies, Drama-Queens, depraved creatures of the night, satyrs & nymphs and the Great God Pan and my *God*, for all we know a bunch of Dartmouth people---and we might as well talk, me & thee, while New Order is droning out merciless monotone black-hearted menace crunching pounding throbbing out of the speakers.
Let's talk about the Rules of Attraction.
They are---well, it's just not as simple as Boy Meets Girl, Boys gets Girl---not anymore, man. No way.It's more like: Boy meets Girl, who likes Boy, who likes other Girl, who's involved in a crazy sex-thing with Boy (from LA) who might have something strange going on with Boy (at Harvard?), who (rumor has it) got Girl into a little trouble. It's Camden College, mid-eighties.
Reagan posters in the dormhouse, but mutilated, defaced, covered with little ironic black Satan mustachios. Picture postcard perfect New Hampshire liberal arts school, rich with wealthy patrons and a supple endownment, good as Hell to look at in the Fall, preferably Fall with all those pretty colors, lots of Ivy on the curtain wall and gables and---Who are we kidding? Camden College is a prison, a prison for the children of the terminally Rich.
Or maybe not a prison: Bret Easton Ellis conjures up a kind of way-station, a Purgatorio, in "Rules of Attraction", a switching point, the midpoint between Alpha & Omega, between Genesis & Terminus, but you can't get either place from here, and there is NOTHING---I mean, NOTHING---in between.
That's what Ellis's vicious, biting, incalculably funny little book is about, and I'll be damned if it's pretty consumptive reading, following all this Nothing. Into the den of despair, then: Sean Bateman (a mere monster in teething, compared to his investment banker brother Patrick) swoons over Lauren, who is snarky and broods and pines over Victor, traipsing over Europe and desperate to find Jaime, who is mysterious, reclusive, and at least two steps ahead of him; Paul Denton, Drama-Queen, driven to distraction over Sean, mourning Mitchell, who is tramping about campus (& the City ) with that plummy little Freshman Candice---who Sean likes---and the Frenchman Bertrand, who longs for Lauren & virtually anyone else, who is Sean's insufferable roomate.
The Rules of Attraction, then: whoever you love, probably doesn't love you. Or is pining for your Mortal Enemy. Or is using you, for some reason known only to them, or to the Great God Pan, or to Destiny. Or has nothing but pure acid-battery drunken-morning-puke contempt for you.
"Rules of Attraction" is a wicked little gem of literary curare, all high-style and aimless debauchery, and the best of it is that Ellis springs some kind of wicked little trapdoor into the minds of his victims. It's a strange tale, strangely told, in a kind of "Rashomon" fashion, & so spiked with bias & jaundice & strangeness & this wild breed of melancholy that it is utterly impossible to fathom who is telling the truth, or even if there is any truth to be Told.
There is also this aching sadness, and this maddening eeriness, about the book, the kind of atmosphere, like the famous yellow-fog London Peculiar, that hangs about Bret Easton Ellis's work, that single-minded eeriness, that palpable sense of dread and doom and mounting unease, that whisper of foul murders committed by Devils & Demons summoned up by our own vanity and boredom and indifference, that makes this piece an especially spooky read---particularly when Part-Time Lovers Lauren & Sean try to Play House. Icky.
A bazillion years ago---well, it was probably 1987---I was in this little New Wave Noveau Cuisine pizza house, where the pizza slices could be measured in nano-meters (and the food was snipped and parsed and dressed and elegant and inedible), where you hung out to hang out, to hobnob, to sneer, not because the food was good (Jesus, quite the contrary)---all high-style and in-your-face effrontery---and the menu had some little blurb like "Everything Reduces to Nothing". I think the Camden Damned would agree, and perhaps understand---Rock n' Roll, Deal with it.
Read the stilted, halting, loveless scene between the increasingly distracted Paul Denton and his mother, and try not to feel this grinding, horrific sadness, this despair born of potential denied, of things vital left unsaid. Remembered lines, between the sheets
I think the Party's over.
JSG
From darkness into ...more darkness.......2007-01-18
A dark, claustrophobic comedy. The reader's amusement can only be tinged with sadness at the waste of these lives with no meaning or purpose. The novel begins and ends in mid-sentence, emphasising that there is no closure here, only a sense of drift. This device also puts the reader in a position of overhearing what is going on, though still feeling a sense of involvement with the desperate lives before us. A useful preparation,too, for the same author's later novel American Psycho, which is even more savage as a satire and more shocking in its subject matter. As a 'Brit' I learned a lot from both books about the shadow side of gilded American youth and the price paid for the American dream. Recommended.
Book Description
“Christopher Hogwood came home on my lap in a shoebox. He was a creature who would prove in many ways to be more human than I am.”
–from The Good Good Pig
A naturalist who spent months at a time living on her own among wild creatures in remote jungles, Sy Montgomery had always felt more comfortable with animals than with people. So she gladly opened her heart to a sick piglet who had been crowded away from nourishing meals by his stronger siblings. Yet Sy had no inkling that this piglet, later named Christopher Hogwood, would not only survive but flourish–and she soon found herself engaged with her small-town community in ways she had never dreamed possible. Unexpectedly, Christopher provided this peripatetic traveler with something she had sought all her life: an anchor (eventually weighing 750 pounds) to family and home.
The Good Good Pig celebrates Christopher Hogwood in all his glory, from his inauspicious infancy to hog heaven in rural New Hampshire, where his boundless zest for life and his large, loving heart made him absolute monarch over a (mostly) peaceable kingdom. At first, his domain included only Sy’s cosseted hens and her beautiful border collie, Tess. Then the neighbors began fetching Christopher home from his unauthorized jaunts, the little girls next door started giving him warm, soapy baths, and the villagers brought him delicious leftovers. His intelligence and fame increased along with his girth. He was featured in USA Today and on several National Public Radio environmental programs. On election day, some voters even wrote in Christopher’s name on their ballots.
But as this enchanting book describes, Christopher Hogwood’s influence extended far beyond celebrity; for he was, as a friend said, a great big Buddha master. Sy reveals what she and others learned from this generous soul who just so happened to be a pig–lessons about self-acceptance, the meaning of family, the value of community, and the pleasures of the sweet green Earth. The Good Good Pig provides proof that with love, almost anything is possible.
Customer Reviews:
Unusual Pig Story--Hilarious!.......2007-10-07
This book about a pig was hilarious! I enjoyed it because I am an animal lover and the story was so charmingly funny. It made me laugh and I also liked the pictures that were included. It was a fast read too!
A wonderful surprise.......2007-10-01
I bought this book because I'm an animal lover, and pigs have always enchanted me. But I admit I was not expecting a masterpiece. The first 15 pages made me laugh and cry so much that the book instantly became the greatest literary surprise of my year. Extremely well written, sensitive, intelligent. My fun reading Sy Montgomery's story of the wonderful Christopher was such that I bought four copies to give as a present to special friends.
Read this book!.......2007-08-13
A friend recommended this book to me, and I was hesitant since I'm usually not an animal book person. I shouldn't have worried for a minute. This book is not just about an incredible pig, but so much more. It's about community and love and travel and death (people and animals) and how to appreciate things while you have them. It's about coming to grips with imperfection in the people and animals we love.
Sy Montgomery lives a very interesting life and shares herself and those around her in a well-written book.
Read it!
Political agenda.......2007-07-23
The author has a political agenda and an extremist point of view that she repeatedly rams down your throat. I thought this was on par with such fantastic books as Marley and Me, but this was not the case at all. The writing is fair, the subject matter gets hijacked for her political views. Why does she assume that we want to hear her political viewpoint when purchasing a story about a pet pig? Very disappointing.
A Good Good Read.......2007-07-19
Sy Montgomery's book teaches us a lot about pigs and people and how both can follow the right path in life. I'll never have a pet pig, but now I can understand how people can cherish them like any other pet. Montgomery's writing is well paced and full of enough calamities in her family and in her friends' families to keep the action going and going. I could have had less of her feelings about how she and her ilk are superior inhabitants of the planet. Also, we don't need explanations of the obvious: "The word compassion means 'with suffering.' To have compassion is to wiilingly join in the suffering - to show those you love that you will not let them suffer alone."
But all in all, this is a very enjoyable book. Christopher certainly grows on you.
Average customer rating:
- Favorite Irving -- quite possibly favorite novel
- An absurd look at life
- Decent Read
- Another delightful tale
- the best John Irving book I've read
|
The Hotel New Hampshire
John Irving
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Literary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Irving, John
| ( I )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Fiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
( I )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Literary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
All 4-for-3 Deals
| 4-for-3 Books Store
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
The World According to Garp
-
A Prayer for Owen Meany
-
The Cider House Rules (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic Series)
-
The Water-Method Man
-
The 158-Pound Marriage (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
ASIN: 034540047X
Release Date: 1995-08-30 |
Book Description
"The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels."
So says John Berry, son of a hapless dreamer, brother to a cadre of eccentric siblings, and chronicler of the lives lived, the loves experienced, the deaths met, and the myriad strange and wonderful times encountered by the family Berry. Hoteliers, pet-bear owners, friends of Freud (the animal trainer and vaudevillian, that is), and playthings of mad fate, they "dream on" in a funny, sad, outrageous, and moving novel by the remarkable author of A Son of the Circus and A Prayer for Owen Meany.
"Like Garp, [THE HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE] is a startlingly original family saga that combines macabre humor with Dickensian sentiment and outrage at cruelty, dogmatism and injustice."
--Time
"Rejoice! John Irving has written another book according to your world....You must read this book."
--Los Angeles Times
"Spellbinding...Intensely human...A high-wire act of dazzling virtuosity."
--Cosmopolitan
Customer Reviews:
Favorite Irving -- quite possibly favorite novel.......2007-03-08
I love this book. I've read about 1/2 of Irving's novels and this is my favorite, though I haven't been disappointed by any. This book is entertaining, compelling, devastating... I could go on and on. He mercilessly kills off characters the reader has developed a fondness for, but somehow keeps us reading. Irving writes with an often dry sense of humor and treads some odd line between realism and absurdity, and it simply works.
Common Irving obsessions pop up -- rape, prositutes, bears, motorcycles, Vienna. A lot of the same stuff from Setting Free the Bears, but he is a more experienced writer here and not afraid to be American and doesn't have the same young man's individualistic bravado that characterized that novel (my least favorite). He writes about the glory and the tragedy of the (inevitably thoroughly dysfunctional) family, which is really what he excels at, I think.
In short, read it. But don't see the movie if you loved the book; despite some perfect casting (e.g. Jodi Foster as Franny), it is horrid.
An absurd look at life.......2006-10-02
"Hotel New Hampshire" a great read. It looks at the life of an anything but normal family. An impulsive often harebrained yet passionate father, an incestuous brother and sister, etc. The story also contains several family friends like Susie who runs around in a bear suit, the old man Freud who is blind and uses a Louisville Slugger as a cane, and whores and bomb-chucking revolutionaries. Since it is a lengthy story that covers practically the entire histroy of a family, to describe the plot would be too much for here. However, it is a beautiful story of a family and their honorary members.
At times is seems to drag a bit due to it being a lengthy tale, later you'll probably find that it is necessary to set up the next part of the story. Some of the symbolism is heavy-handed and some of the changes that happen come across as abrupt and jarring. For some reason though, this works. It was frustrating, but when it comes down to it, it brought a uniqueness and charm to the writing. It almost seems like Irving reigned in his editors, instead of the other way around.
It is absurd, surreal, hilarious and most of all full of love and has passion for life. It looks at all the things that make us human, love friendship, loss, failure and joy.
Decent Read.......2006-08-28
I was first introduced to John Irving when my mom recommended me "The World According to Garp." I absolutely loved it, and still do. I kept saying to myself, "This is one of the best books I've ever read." Next, I read "Setting Free the Bears," which, while it was nowhere near as great as Garp, I still liked, overall. The third John Irving book I read was this one, "The Hotel New Hampshire."
I absolutely loved the first half. There's bears, rape, death, Halloween, and school bullies. It really took me back to the magic that was Garp.
But, about halfway through the novel, a couple of characters die rather unexpectedly. I don't know why Irving chose to kill off the characters there and then, but it really threw me out of the story. Just two chapters, and a few months in the book's chronology, before a main character was killed unexpectedly. I don't know why, but it just didn't feel "natural" and it made me realize that I was reading a novel, something made up. It just felt contrived.
After that, though, the book started gathering a little more steam. That is, until it randomly skipped ahead seven years. The family stays in Vienna for seven years, and nothing ever changes. They know the same whores, the same "radicals", and we never even get to meet their school buddies. That's part of what I liked the most about the first half, the people they met at school.
And the way they "deal with" Chipper Dove seemed a little ridiculous, even for John Irving. And after the deaths in the middle, I really couldn't care about any of the characters anymore. None of the deaths in the second half made me in the least bit sad. (I did like the terrorist plot, though.)
In the end, its merits outweigh its faults, and I DID enjoy reading it. But it could have been so much better.
Another delightful tale.......2006-03-25
The Hotel New Hampshire is a story of love, family, absurdity, and solidarity. Win Berry graduates from his small New Hampshire high school and goes to work at a resort in Maine to save money to attend Harvard. Mary Bates, also from Dairy, New Hampshire, found herself working at this same resort and the two fell in love over the course of that summer. That summer also brought them Freud, a small German man who had trained a bear and provided entertainment at the resort. He became a life-long friend to the couple and at the end of the summer sold Win the bear. What unfolds is a life's story, told from the perspective of Win and Mary's 3rd child, John, that is as bizzare as it is touching and moving.
The Berry family opens The Hotel New Hampshire in Dairy and the novel chronicles the out of the ordinary experiences that occur in this unlikely hotel. The next stage of the family's life takes them to Vienna to open The Second Hotel New Hampshire. The family experiences a dark period in Austria with tragedy and sadness mixed in to the family's trademark weirdness. Finally, life brings them back to America where each finds their place in life all the while remaining a tight unit, each person a necessary part in the other's life.
Completely unable to describe accurately, John Irving has written another masterpiece. The characters are alive and wonderful and their experiences unpredictable. What makes Irving's novels so fantastic is that the stories are completely fantastic, yet completely realistic all at the same time. If you have read one, you know exactly what I mean. You find yourself falling in love with the characters and feeling as though you are part of their family. I've never met a John Irving novel I didn't love.
the best John Irving book I've read.......2005-11-22
In my opinion this is far and away the best of John Irving's novels (although I admit that I have read nothing more recent than A Prayer for Owen Meany). Up until that point I read everything by Irving that I could get my hands on. This book is hilarious, often bizarre, and sometimes sad. The humor can be pretty raunchy, but it always seems to have a pretty good point to it. Irving has a great gift for creating fascinating characters, and his brilliance in this respect is in full force in Hotel New Hampshire. From sister Franny, to the bear called State of Maine, to the poor and stinky laborador retriever, you will not soon forget this wild bunch of characters. I've read this book several times, and even though I know the story pretty well, I don't get tired of it. It is highly recommended reading.
Amazon.com
Dr. Schoen shares his holistic view of animal healing in the form of instruction and example: loving tales of the animals and people he has known. If you loved All Creatures Great and Small, this book will take you one step further, from compassion to knowledge. A practical guide for living with and caring for our animal companions.
Customer Reviews:
AWSOME, a must read!.......2005-12-06
I am twelve years old, and have great dreams of being a vet some day. I always like to read vet books, and when I found this one at the library I was amazed, it look awsome. I read it, and thought it was even better. I am now looking to purchase a copy, one for me, and one for Nina,(a friend of mine) and one for Kendra(another friend). I think that this is an awsome book, and if you haven't read it you should.
Allan tells wonderful tales of his life as a vet, and the absured treatments that he used. Nothing was too absured, he even untwisted the cow when he couldn't untwist the uterous! He also uses acupuncture and Chinese medicine.
I don't have a pet:(, but if I did I would want a vet like Allan to take care of it for me.
Excellent book; rich in anecdotes and reports of healings.......2005-01-07
Allen Schoen and Pam Proctor bring us a rich, detailed spectrum of ways in which love, intuition and complementary/ alternative therapies can help animals small and large. This book is rich in anecdotes and reports of healings on physical, psychological and spiritual levels for animals with these approaches after conventional veterinary care had exhausted its potentials to help. Schoen integrates acupuncture, homeopathy and herbal remedies in his practice.
This is a truly wholistic book, addressing body, emotions, mind, relationships and spirit - both of the animals who were helped and of their owners.
Schoen illustrates his work with many heartwarming stories of his challenges and adventures with animals and their owners.
A typical example is Schoen's description of how he nursed a wild hawk who was paralyzed from the neck down following injuries from a power line. Schoen found ways to tame and heal this wary creature so that it could recover, eventually returning to his wilderness home. As with many of his animal patients, Schoen found himself learning and growing in the process of his ministrations.
" ...no creature can remain forever closed to the healing power of love. I knew that if I could establish an intimate relationship with a bird of prey, I could communicate with any animal, no matter how distant or fearsome it might appear to be. All I would need was a sensitivity of spirit, a willingness to open myself nonjudgmentally to a dimension of reality where feathers, fur, skin, scales, or hair are stripped away - and where the only language is love.
"Hawkeye had his freedom, and now I had mine. He had given me my wings, and I was ready to soar." (p. 71)
This is an excellent book for anyone interested in learning about ways of healing that extend beyond conventional veterinary care.
Not just for veterinarians..........1998-03-02
A mixture of tender stories and practical advice. I've read the book many times and with each reading, I'm always moved to try a little harder to communicate with my pets. Great book. Wish I had a vet like this.
BEST PET BOOK EVER!.......1997-04-13
DR. SCHOEN IS AN INCREDIBLE INDIVIDUAL. IT WAS AMAZING TO READ MY OWN BELIEFS IN PRINT. THE FEELINGS I HAVE ABOUT ANIMALS AND THEIR ABILITIES ARE THE EXACT PRINCIPLES BY WHICH DR. SCHOEN PRACTICES. I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ANY ANIMAL LOVER. I RECEIVED IT FOR CHRISTMAS AND FINISHED IT CHRISTMAS NIGHT. IT IS TRULY A TREASURE
A delightful and enlightening testimony of compassion........1997-01-16
Dr. Schoen has once again succesfully captured the attention
of his readers with a warm yet informative account on
the veterinary experience. His years of medical expertise and
devotion to his field add to the composition of his book.
Flavored with plenty of heart-felt emotions, his tales of
his animal companions really remind Us, as humans, what
it is to care for another living creature. Dr. Schoen
effectively conveys his numerous veterinary experiences, and
even manages to shed some Western thought on the ancient,
Eastern art of acupuncture.
Book Description
This is the best book on flyfishing in New England-bar none. Whether your target is landlocked or migratory Atlantic salmon, striped or smallmouth bass, brook trout, or even rainbow and brown trout, this book should be included in your travel bag. The authors lead you through a detailed description of all major waters in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Content includes timing of seasonal trout, bass, and salmon runs, suggested flies, site-specific maps and area hatch charts. Finally, what Northeast anglers have been waiting for, a comprehensive guide to flyfishing opportunities in the great northeast.
Customer Reviews:
Spare the Rod ý NEGLECT the child........2000-11-14
No home movies, no photo albums, no old songs warm myheart more than traveling through New England to some of the very places described in this book. That's where my memories lie. That's where my father took me, and his father before that.
And while I have moved away, there are two great reminders of a childhood that I can only describe as ecstatic. A picture on my wall of E.B. White. And Hickoff & Plumley's book about the best places to fish. Some I've been to. Some I was taken to by these authors.
For those of you who are not as nostaglic and wistful about New England, let me with all honesty say that this book will serve as a superb and practical guidebook. And for those who have a little something more connected to the region, this book is a blueprint for irreplacable memories.
And damned good fishing spots and tips.
Fly Fishing in Northern New England.......2000-08-09
I had the pleasure of attending a seminar by Steve Hickoff last winter. I bought this book from him at the seminar, and have used it a lot more than I ever thought I would. My family and I were on vacation at Sebago Lake in Maine recently, and the information in the book on Sebago Lake, the Crooked River, and the Presumpscott River was invaluable. The maps of the Crooked and Presumpscott rivers especially allowed me to get up early, get to a good fishing spot, and even catch a couple of fish (all before the rest of the family even knew I had gone fishing). I really like the Crooked River, it has become one of my favorites. As an earlier reviewer stated, this book gives you the information to get to the good spots, without wasting a lot of time driving around. The book also provided information on what sections of the rivers were fly fishing only, and the local regulations for taking trout and salmon. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who plans on doing any fly fishing in Maine, NH, and Vermont.
ONE OF THE FINEST BOOKS, I'VE EVER READ!!!!.......1999-04-19
FROM THE MOUNTAINS OF VERMONT TO THE ALLAGASH IN MAINE TO SEACOAST OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. HICKOFF AND PLUMNEY KNOW WERE IT'S AT. FROM THEORY TO FLIES TO PRACTICAL INFO. THEY NOT ONLY TALK THE TALK, THEY WALK THE WALK. I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ANY FLY FISHERMAN RATHER A BEGINNER OR A EXPERT. TIGHT LINES, STEVE, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.
tells you what you need to know.......1999-04-18
I travel around New England regularly and usually have a fly rod in my car. It is always frustrating when I have a couple of hours of free time and I spend it trying to figure out where to fish instead of spending it fishing. This book has all you need to know to find a spot and catch (and hopefully release) some fish. Unlike some books the authors don't limit themselves to only one kind of fish or claim that every spot they talk about is going to rival the best place you've ever fished. Highly recommended for anyone who gets the privilege of fishing in New England!
Book Description
Biography of Franklin Pierce, New Hampshire native and 14th president of the United States. Volume covers Pierce to the night of his inauguration.
Customer Reviews:
President Pierce - an honest man enduring personal and political tragedy.......2007-04-02
For those who have interest in studying tough, stong, capable men who achieve our highest office but yet fail to achieve anticipated heights of power and glory, this brief, taut biography gives insights into a northeastern political power who harbors quiet sentiments for the South's "peculiar institution" and who fails due to the dichotomy of constituent demands.
An interesting human drama played against a transitioning political background.
The Making of President Pierce.......2007-03-03
It has been nigh on to 100 years since there was a complete biography of Franklin Pierce published and in that time there have been many changes in the way historians look at things. Revisionism and Counter-Revisionism and all sorts of isms have swept through the historical community but until now no one has thought to take another look at Franklin Pierce. Back in my college days I sat through classes during which the professors only mentioned Pierce in a negative light and in one class I had as a textbook a book that was very hard on Pierce and the notion that he was a horrible president and person just never seemed to be challenged. Finally in this book those notions are beginning to be challenged and in a forceful and thought provoking way.
The basis for most of the Pierce bashing comes from the idea that he was not only pro Southern but also pro-slavery and neither could be farther from the truth. Of course this book doesn't deal with his presidency or the Civil War but just with his life up until his first night in the White House but the author proves quite satisfactorily that Pierce only supported the South in matters where he believed that the Constitution was on their side and that he deplored slavery but felt that it was protected by the Constitution and to Pierce nothing was more sacred than the Constitution. The Constitution in Pierce's mind was the only thing that stood between the common man and absolute domination of the country by the rich and powerful and he wasn't willing to sacrifice that for any cause no matter how noble.
The author also does an excellent job of explaining Pierce's dislike for abolitionists above and beyond the fact that he felt that they were a threat to the Union. Pierce spent most of his life fighting for the common man and especially for religious liberty including a court case where he put his popularity on the line to defend the Shaker sect from persecution. Many of the people who sought to persecute the Shakers were abolitionists and also many abolitionists were violently anti-Catholic and Pierce began to see most abolitionists as religious bigots, which in fact many of them were. In Pierce's mind racial bigotry and religious bigotry were equally noxious and he came to detest all abolitionists because of their association with this intolerant attitude. To Pierce those who chose to lie down with dogs most certainly got up with fleas.
Mr. Wallner has done an excellent job with this book and although he has to some extent fallen into the biographer's trap of becoming too enamored by his subject he has at least backed up all of his ascertains with good research. This is a well-written and very enjoyable book that gives the reader a good look at Franklin Pierce's pre-presidential life both private and public. A lot of President Pierce's policies may look bad in hindsight but thanks to Mr. Wallner one can easily see where his core beliefs came from. Any student of the presidency will want to pick up this book as will any Civil War buff but just keep in mind that while history has not been kind to Pierce Mr. Wallner may have been a bit too kind to him. I very much look forward to volume two.
Long overdue exploration of a political mystery........2006-09-21
For years Franklin Pierce has been ill-served by the nation's historians, nearly all of whom repeat the same things about him--that he was an alcoholic, a coward in the Mexican-American war, pro-slavery and one of the reasons why this country had a Civil War.
Unfortunetely such judgements are basedly largely on biased accounts written decades ago, such as Allen Nevin's "Ordeal of the Union," an enormously slanted work on the events leading up to the Civil War; thus repeating for succeeding generations the same tired old myths without bothering to take a new look at where those myths originated.
In recent years the most important attack on Pierce came in the form of an essay written by William W. Freehling, who admits he borrowed from Nevin, in a guide called "The Presidents: A Reference History." In it, Freehling delivers what could only be described as a personal attack on the 14th president, calling him, among other things, "an inconsequential charmer," a "pleasant nonentity," and "a non-actor clinging to more powerful statemen's actions as if they were his own."
Freehling's very brief scholarship on Pierce's years after the White House are the most disturbing and incorrect. He claims, without providing any documentary evidence, that Pierce sank "deeply into an alcoholic haze," and died in 1869 "almost unnoticed, once again almost unknown."
In fact, Pierce's death was a day of national mourning called for by President Ulysses S. Grant (even the U.S. Supreme Court suspended activities), with his controversial life and career vigorously debated and amply covered by the nation's most important newspapers: The New York Times, the New York Herald, the New York Tribune and the Washigton Star, among others.
I am the author of a book called "The Expatriation of Franklin Pierce: the Story of a President and the Civil War," which mostly focuses on Pierce's activities as an ex-president during the Civil War years, when he fought against President Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus and urged the government to enter into negotiations with the Confederacy.
Far from sinking into an alcoholic haze, Pierce remained remarkably active and vigorous in retirement, engaged in contemporary debate, and compiling a record of political participation that is perhaps only equalled by Harry Truman in the decade or so after he left the White House in 1953.
For a much larger look at Pierce and his complex rise to the top during his New Hampshire years, Peter Wallner's book is a welcome addition. Unlike Freehling and others, Wallner has actually gone through the Pierce papers (the vast majority of which are available in the archives of the New Hampshire Historical Collection and through the Library of Congress' presidential papers microfilm series).
The end result is a work of solid scholarship that in no way serves to apologize for anything that Pierce does, but effectively dismantles the "non-entity" noose that others have tried to hang him with. Wallner copiously explores every aspect of Pierce's career leading up to his landslide election in 1852, and the result is a profile of a politician who was remarkably good at what he did.
Incidentally, Wallner finally puts to rest the idea that Pierce was plucked from hinterland obscurity when delegates to the Democratic convention in 1852 named him as their presidential nominee. In fact, Pierce angled for months behind the scenes to get the nod, and adriotly figured that if the other, more well-known candidates cancelled themselves out, he would have a real shot at being nominated in a later ballot.
Pierce's cunning and guile in just that contest alone, as amply demonstrated by Wallner, showed that he was actually an astute and capable political strategist.
What Wallner will tell us about Pierce as president, and whatever other myths he may effectively demolish, can only be imagined. His style is quiet and respectful, slowly building a case that casts historians like Freehling, who have appraoched the Pierce presidency a bit too breezily, in an unfavorble light.
Surely the second volume of Wallner's biography of Pierce will effectively (if the first volume has not already done so) establish him as the preeminent Pierce scholar of our time, doing for the 14th president what Arthur Schlesinger did for FDR.
Garry Boulard, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
what about Pierce's presidency?.......2006-06-02
I just finished reading this book and found it interesting and well-written. It convinced me that Pierce was an exceptional politician, honest, hardworking, sincere and well liked. He was a leader in New Hampshire for many years. What struck me as odd was the fact that it ended shortly about his inauguration. There was no mention of his presidency and why he was considered a failure. Perhaps the author intends to write a second book. However, this is not evident in the first one. Also, Pierce is often tagged with the reputation as a drunk. Wallner does not delve into this problem. He points out that Pierce gave up drinking and was in favor of convincing other people to do the same.
Since Pierce was such an obscure president, there are very few books on his life. Wallner points out that he was able to consult many manuscripts that were not previous available.
That would indicate that this short life is authoritative, as far as it goes. If you want another good biography, the only one by a historian is by Nichols, but it was written decades ago. The one by Gara is not recommended. It is mainly about the period and rarely mentions Pierce by name.
Fresh, highly readable look at our 14th President.......2006-05-06
This is the story about a handsome, gifted son of a colorful Revolutionary War veteran and governor, who seemingly with little effort became Speaker of the N.H. House at age 27, then a congressman, senator, general in the Mexican War, was among the most celebrated lawyers in his home state, turned down a presidential appointment to be U.S. attorney general, only to later become President himself. All this by age 48. With such a life, of course, came much suffering. Wouldn't you know it. With the talent and success, there was a flow of self doubt, inner torment, struggles with faith and the bottle, a difficult marriage, and huge personal grief. With the eloquence, brilliant mind and good looks was also stubbornness and political vindictiveness. It's a familiar story that always fascinates. Bright boy from a powerful, connected family makes it big, really big, but it all ends sadly. This story about Franklin Pierce is wonderfully and freshly told by author Peter A. Wallner, whose college mentor was the biographer of another president of the same era, Philip Shriver Klein (President James Buchanan: A Biography, Penn State Press, 1962; reprinted: American Political Biography Press, 1995). Drawing on documents unavailable to previous biographers, Wallner's Franklin Pierce, New Hampshire's Favorite Son is actually the first of a two volume project, covering the years from birth, to the election of 1852, to just before entering the White House. The second volume, dealing with the presidential years, is reportedly due for publication in early 2007. If it's like the first, the set will be an important new look at an easily passed over, but critical period. Let's face it. As presidents go, Franklin Pierce has not had a huge following since his one-term administration ended in 1857 (he was not renominated by his own party). Our 14th president along with the seven others between Jackson and Lincoln, rest in a kind of historical blur amid the years leading to the Civil War. Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan...not much there to inspire generations of school children, or historians for that matter (possibly excepting Polk). That's why it's so interesting, even surprising to see such a high quality, readable work about one of these to emerge. More proof that anyone capable of getting elected to the White House must certainly have a great story, if only it can be told well enough to appeal to an audience outside of academia. In this, Peter Wallner has truly delivered, and in doing so has given all who love American history, especially those interested in the Antebellum Period, a great gift indeed.
Books:
- Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance
- 1776
- A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900
- A W
The Mistress's Daughter: A Memoir
If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation
Promise Not to Tell: A Novel
Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil
Helpless: A Novel
