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Imagine how strange and frightening it would be to see a picture of yourself, not quite a year old, with your mother and two men, one of whom is a confessed serial killer. This is what happened to Sebastian Junger, and only a small part of what he recounts in A Death in Belmont.
The quiet suburb of Belmont, Massacuusetts, is in the grip of fear. The Boston Strangler murders have taken place nearby, and now there is another shocking sex crime, right in Belmont. The victim is Bessie Goldberg, a middle-aged woman who had hired a cleaning man to help out around the house on that fall day in 1963. He is a black man named Roy Smith. He did the appointed chores, collected his money and left a receipt on the kitchen table. Neighbors will say that he looked furtive when he walked down the street, that he was in a hurry, that he stopped to buy cigarettes, that he looked over his shoulder. They didn't see a black man in Belmont very often, so, of course, they noticed him. So the story went, and on these slender threads, and his own checkered history, Roy Smith is convicted of the Belmont murder and sent to prison.
On the day of the murder, Albert DeSalvo, an Italian-American handyman, is also in Belmont, working as a carpenter in the Junger home, where the picture is taken. Two years after his work for the Jungers, he confesses in vivid detail to the crimes of which the Boston Strangler is accused, and sent to prison, where he is stabbed to death by an inmate. But he never confesses to the Bessie Goldberg murder. Could he have left the Junger home, committed the murder a few blocks away and calmly returned to finish his day's work? Could Roy Smith really have been the guilty party, even though his sentence was commuted after De Salvo confessed?
In the grand tradition of his bestselling The Perfect Storm, Junger tells a terrific story, lining up all the elements, asking all the pertinent questions, digging into the backgrounds of both men, retelling his mother's very strange encounter with Albert when she is home alone with Sebastian. He then asks the larger questions: Was Roy Smith convicted summarily because he was black? Was Albert De Salvo really the Boston Strangler?
Junger cannot answer all the questions, as no one can. Without DNA, there is no way to be certain of which of the two men might have committed the rape and murder of Bessie Goldberg, or if neither of them is guilty. While it is frustrating not to know for sure, the story is fascinating, reads like a tautly plotted mystery thriller, and Junger's close connection is downright creepy. --Valerie Ryan
Book Description
In the spring of 1963, the quiet suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts, is rocked by a shocking murder that fits the pattern of the infamous Boston Strangler, still at large. Hoping for a break in the case, the police arrest Roy Smith, a black ex-con whom the victim hired to clean her house. Smith is hastily convicted of the murder, but the Strangler's terror continues. And through it all, one man escapes the scrutiny of the police: a carpenter working at the time at the Belmont home of young Sebastian Junger and his parents—a man named Albert
From the acclaimed author of A Perfect Storm comes a powerful chronicle of three lives that collide in the vortex of one of America's most controversial serial murder cases.
Customer Reviews:
Great Investigative Journalism.......2007-10-20
It is completely unfair, and actually pretty ludicrous, to compare Sebastian Jungers book, A Death In Belmont, to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Capote for all intents and purposes, invented journalistic fiction, meaning a true story that reads like a novel, and Capote also had first hand, intimate personal knowledge of the killers, he had an ongoing personal relationship with Perry Smith, which allowed him to plum depths into the characters that few writers have ever been able to reach on reporting crime stories. Capote's book became a huge international best seller, and is regarded (me included) to be a masterpeice of it's kind.
Junger's book is immediately compelling, quite disturbing and totally hard to put down. He covers all the facts, those that were available (remember DNA evidence was still a thing of the future in the 1960's), and does not draw any easy conclusions, leaving instead, the reader to make up his mind as to the guilt or innocence of the characters involved.
Why bother.......2007-09-24
I found the book mildly interesting while I was reading it, but the end was a little disappointing and left me thinking why did I bother reading it.
Murder in the Neighborhood.......2007-08-10
No, it's not the story of the filly Ruffian's breakdown at Belmont Park. Rather, investigative reporter Sebastian Junger takes on a piece of his family's accepted history--that when he was less than a year old, neighbor woman Bessie Goldberg, living in the upscale Belmont section of suburban Boston, was killed by Albert DeSalvo, the infamous Boston Strangler, who at time of the murder was working on a remodeling job in the Junger home. At the time, an African-American man, Roy Smith, who had been cleaning inside the victim's house on the same day, was accused, tried and convicted of the murder.
Junger brings the eye of a seasoned investigator to the task, scrupulously mapping a timeline for the man convicted of the crime, and compiling a trove of details about DeSalvo and the other "Strangler" cases. Still, his prose is quite readable, resembling a novel moreso than an investigative piece, although the almost clinical approach belies the passion you might expect from such a violent story hitting so close to home.
I'll leave it to you to find out both your and Junger's conclusions. The descriptions of various murders are pretty grisly, so I'd restrict this one to adult readers.
Don't answer the door..........2007-08-08
A DEATH IN BELMONT relives a frightening time in the Boston area during the 60's when the Strangler was on the loose and the most dangerous place a woman could be caught was in the safety of her own home. Junger delves into the murder of an elderly woman, the first murder in the town of Belmont, a comfortable suburb. Obviously, Roy Smith, the cleaning temp who leaves shortly before the woman's body is found by her husband, is the prime suspect. Not just because of his dark skin (though race is a factor) but rather his dark, criminal past.
Junger takes the reader through the investigation and unearths the dirt on Smith. He conducts interviews and pieces together the life of a man that was pretty much broken from the start. Did Smith do it? Is he innocent? Was it really the confessed Strangler, DeSalvo, who was working a mile or so away at the Junger home? If you're looking for definitive answers, you won't find it in this book. It is an investigation into the crime, an "investigation" which implies an inquiry. Nothing more. The reader is left to determine for himself or herself what must've happened.
I recommend this book to readers who like to think. I also recommend the PS paperback version as it has an interview with the author and provides more insights.
It's not a Perfect Storm.......2007-08-08
I'm glad I didn't buy this book. Expecting an exciting work I discovered a very slow read. Seems the basic facts of the case are repeated and squeezed for details all of which ends up being filler. The best parts are anectdotal snippets which have little to do with the case itself. Some of the descriptions of how the law has changed over the past 40 years are curious and informative. But if you are looking for a summer read ---move on. I did ....skimmed the last half of the book and returned it.
Book Description
Now in its Fifth Edition, this foremost leadership and management text incorporates application with theory and emphasizes critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making. More than 225 case studies and learning exercises promote critical thinking and interactive discussion. This edition includes 46 new case studies in settings such as acute care, ambulatory care, long-term care, and community health. The book addresses timely nursing leadership and management issues, such as leadership development, staffing, delegation, ethics and law, organizational, political, and personal power, management and technology, and more. Web links and learning exercises appear in each chapter. An Instructor's CD-ROM includes a testbank and PowerPoint slides.
Customer Reviews:
Well written and organized nicely.......2007-10-01
This is a book I am using for a Health Systems Management course. The case studies in each chapter are very real and allow for good reinforcement of the knowledge presented in the chapters. The book is organized well and allows good flow through the material.
Practical Approaches to Leadership Theory.......2000-11-05
I have reviewed many excellent texts on nursing leadership and management, but I have never found one that so clearly outlined the theory and then provided cutting edge practical tools for distinctive problems. I had utilized a more simplistic text for community college registered nurse students, but when I presented one of the practical tools described in this book to my students, they said now this is really worthwhile learning. They liked the decision making tool that I described to them. The book should be a must for the bachelor's prepared nurse. I personally feel managers can utilize this book to increase their leadership skills. I personally am buying my own copy for my current management job.
Customer Reviews:
Woman with Wings.......2000-06-12
As a female-student pilot myself, at 43 and a University student, I have been researching women from across the globe who were yearning to be pilots in the 1930s to the 1950s. I found this book to be informative and inspiring. With so many obstacles against her one of which would never be considered these days, nationality, Bessie only tried harder and determination won through! Reminds me of two Australian books I have recently read namely, 'Pioneer Aviator The Remarkable life of Lores Bonney' by Terry Gwynn-Jones and My God! It's A Woman autobiography by Nancy Bird.
Book Description
Arizona is known the world over for its rich abundance and variety of geological treasures. Newly revised, the fourth edition of this best-selling guide updates the well-known sites and features twenty new locations for collecting rocks, minerals, crystals and fossils. Situated in landscape as diverse as the minerals themselves, these sites vary from arid desert to pine covered peaks. Includes over 90 collecting sites.
Detailed text describes where to go and what to look for at each collecting area. Maps for each site lead the rockhound to an almost limitless supply of specimens. Black and white photographs picture the collecting areas. Color photographs highlight beautiful specimens. A new glossary makes it easier to locate that special specimen for your collection.
Filled with expert advice based on years of experience, Gem Trails of Arizona is an invaluable guide for the rockhound just starting out. For the experienced collector who has searched for Arizona's mineral resources for years, it is an outstanding source for the best collecting sites throughout this scenic state.
Customer Reviews:
sorely in need of another revision.......2007-08-20
We tried half a dozen or more of the recommended trails and had success with only one! Arizona has been developing fast and many roads were closed, gone, blocked or built over. We did enjoy our one successful day (although I wish he had noted that it would take hours to cross the unpaved dirt roads...), but lost several vacation days to paths which no longer existed :(
We ultimately decided to ditch the book so that we could enjoy more of our vacation and give up the "wild goose" chases.
I'd recommend this only for people who live in arizona and have abundant time on their hands. expect to experience more disappointments and failures than successes, and you will not be disappointed.
Using the book in the field.......2006-11-13
After purchasing the book, I used it by going to some of the sites listed in the book and after being successful at two out of 5 of the sites I went to I would have to say that the book needs a new revised edition. But overall it is an outstanding book and a must for the rockhounds heading for Arizona.
Needs better maps and/or GPS coordinates.......2004-04-16
This review is based on visiting only 4 of the sites covered in the book. For three of the four sites, I found the hand drawn maps in the book rather confusing. Based on my limited experience, it appears that most AZ roads outside of medium to large population centers are rough, may be unmarked and, if marked, often have names/numbers that may not match the book, the gazetteer, or USGS topo maps. Furthermore, some of these collecting sites are old mine workings that are not readily visible due to overgrowth. In any case, GPS coordinates would take some of the confusion out of the location descriptions. Better maps would help also. However, we did eventually find what was advertised and this certainly is a helpful guide and worth the money spent.
Gem Trails of Arizona.......2001-01-02
I own three different revisions of this book. All are very useful for amateur rock hounds. My sons and I have visited about a dozen of the listed sites and all have produced nice specimens.
Book Description
The mystery of Glen and Bessie Hyde is whitewater navigation's equivalent to Mallory and Irvine's disappearance on Everest in 1924. Just four years later in October 1928, the Hydes, a bright, attractive, and talented young couple built their own wooden sweep scow and launched on a honeymoon voyage down the Green and Colorado Rivers through Grand Canyon. Bessie was the first woman to ever attempt the river. Halfway through Grand Canyon they talked to the press, then disappeared into the gloomy November depths of the gorge. They were never seen again. Despite an extensive series of searches, no trace was found except, eerily, their boat: upright, intact, fully loaded, and snagged in calm water. Glen and Bessie had vanished without a trace. For the next seven decades their tale evolved from simple facts to convoluted folklore and myth. A woman appeared on a river trip in 1971 claiming to be Bessie, having murdered Glen and hiked out. In 1976 a skeleton was found at Grand Canyon with a bullet through the skull. Size, age and circumstance suggested it was the body of Glen Hyde. In 1985 a woman surfaced with a tale of her father, Glenn Hyde, who had disappeared in 1928, but reappeared seven years later with tales of having rafted rivers. He said he had attempted the Colorado through Grand Canyon but "it didn't work out." And he carried a scar on his back from a knife wound, delivered by a woman named Bessie. And in 1992, when Georgie Clark, the most famous of all river runners, died, her past was discovered to be pure fiction. She had been born Bessie, and her lingerie drawer held a marriage record for Glen and Bessie Hyde. And a pistol. Author and boatman Brad Dimock tackled this story with an obsession, tracking each clue, lead, and rumor, even going to the extreme of building a replica of the Hydes' archaic sweep scow for a harrowing journey through Grand Canyon with his own bride. The resulting book, a masterful interweaving of past and present, of pathos and humor, is a classic in outdoor adventure, mystery writing, literary nonfiction, and investigative journalism. With 304 profusely illustrated pages, this beautiful book is not only a joy to look at, but a true page turner.
Customer Reviews:
Glen&Bessie Hyde .......2007-08-05
Just returned from 7 day trip down the Colorado River/Glen Canyon. One of the favorite stories was of these "honeynooners". the book is a wonderful adventure and worth a read, particularly if you have the joy of rafting that water. Enjoy!
Canyon Mystery.......2006-06-21
The story of Glen and Bessie Hyde is the greatest Grand Canyon mystery. They are the honeymoon couple that disappeared without a trace in 1928. Many myths and legends have evolved in the intervening years (including a segement of "Unsolved Mysteries"). Brad Dimmock is a Colorado River guide (and a very good writer) who duplicated the couples ill fated journey down the Colorado. He has interwoven the historical material with his own modern attempt using a sweepboat similiar to the one the Hyde's used. I read this while visiting the canyon again. It was great sitting on the patio at the Lodge on the North Rim reading this fascinating account. If you love a great mystery or you love Canyon lore, you'll love this book.
Just Get Past The Ugly Cover.......2004-07-11
I think, at first, the cover scared me away, but once I started reading I was involved. I must applaud Brad Dimock's writing skill. He has written a book with the timbre and cadence of a Jon Krakauer about an episode of which we know very little. While Glen Hyde's life was well documented by his family, very little is known about Bessie Hyde or how the Hyde's marriage was holding up under the pressure of their Colorado River float. Despite this dearth of information, Dimock has succeeded in bringing Glen and Bessie to life. We care about these two people, who disappeared over 75 years ago, and we follow the scanty thread of facts that Dimock has been able to gather, hanging on to each clue in the hope of learning their fate even though we know from the beginning that the Hyde's were never found.
Sunk Without a Sound can stand side-by-side with the best of Jon Krakauer and David Roberts.
Fantastic Mystery!.......2003-11-27
This book is one of those can't put it down books. It is well written and keeps you on the edge of your seat. You end up with all kinds of ideas on what happened to Glen and Bessie. It is full of actual photos from Glen and Bessie on this trip. If you like true life mysteries, get this book.
Fascinating adventure story.......2003-01-09
You know from the beginning that they don't make it. The book explores the mystery of who Glen and Bessie were and what happened to them on their honeymoon adventure through the Grand Canyon. HIGHLY recommended.
Average customer rating:
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Manufacturing: A Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide (Handbook of American Business History)
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
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Book Description
This historical and bibliographical reference work is the first volume of Greenwood Press's Handbook of American Business History, a series intended to supplement current bibliographic materials pertaining to business history. Devoted to manufacturing, this work uses the Enterprise Standard Industrial Classification (ESIC) to divide the subject into distinct segments, from which contributors have developed histories and bibliographies of the different types of manufacturing. Though authors were given sets of guidelines to follow, they were also allowed the flexibility to work in a format that best suited the material. Each contribution in this volume contains three important elements: a concise history of the manufacturing sector, a bibliographic essay, and a bibliography. Some contributions appear in three distinct parts, while others are combined into one or two segments; all build on currently available material for students and scholars doing research on business and industry. The contributors, who include business, economic, and social historians, as well as engineers and lawyers, have covered such topics as bakery products, industrial chemicals and synthetics, engines and turbines, and household appliances. Also included are an introductory essay that covers general works and a comprehensive index. This book should be a useful tool for courses in business and industry, and a valuable resource for college, university, and public libraries.
Amazon.com
The female blues singers of the 1920s, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, and Bessie Smith, not only invented a musical genre, but they also became models of how African American women could become economically independent in a culture that had not previously allowed it. Both Smith and Rainey composed, arranged, and managed their own road bands. Angela Y. Davis's study emphasizes the impact that these singers, and later Billie Holiday, had on the poor and working-class communities from which they came. The artists addressed radical subjects such as physical and economic abuse, race relations, and female sexual power, including lesbianism. Ma Rainey was well known as a lover of women as well as men, and her song "Prove It on Me" describes a butch woman who dresses like a man and dates women. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism places the fluid sexuality of these women within a larger context of African American artists' attempts to subvert and recreate America.
Customer Reviews:
You would think our own would know the score. .......2006-01-31
No one with a true understanding of Billie Holiday would consider her a Blues Singer. As such to truly study Blues Legacies, it would be better if a Blues singer like Memphis Minnie, one of the greatest female instrumental blues singers, were included. Surely, Dinah Washington, justifiably named the Queen of the Blues, or Ruth Brown, (Miss or maybe now Ms Rhythm) would be more appropriate to a study of Black blues women.
This hints that the generalizations in this book may be the result of pushing around reality rather than studying it. This is an all too frequent problem in the writing of academics who seem more concerned about creating their own little niche of analysis, than situating their work in the realities of life, culture, and art where the blues or Jazz, and Billie's real life live.
Billie did not like to be called a Blues Singer. If we are concerned with the voices of Black women, then someone involved in this book should have at least had the respect to listen to Billie Holiday's voice on the matter. She considered herself a Jazz singer and later a cabaret singer.
She recorded very few blues. The two blues she recorded again and again "Billie's Blues" and "Fine and Mellow" were only recorded because in two different recording sessions there was time to record additional songs, but no preparation or charts existed for any song, so an easy to play blues was selected. Billie recorded them and performed these two tunes often because she had the author's credit and publishing on them which made it easier and more profitable. This is despite the fact that the exact word sets had been sung and recorded by real blues singers before Billie had the brains to record AND copyright them. Listen to Helen Humes sing an exact version of Fine and Mellow with another name during the first Spirituals to Swing concert that took place BEFORE Billie recorded her version.
A good contrast with Billie, though male, was her friend and often colleague Jimmie Rushing who served with her in the Basie Band. Despite his penchant for claiming he was a ballad singer as well--Rushing actually thought that when Billie left Basie that rather than hiring another singer, he alone could fill the gap--Rushing's recordings with Walter Page's Blue Devils in the 1920s, with Moten in the early 1930s, and with Basie in the 1930s and 1940s are masterpieces of the blues. Many of his renditions like Good Morning Blues have become standards for blusicians of all stripes. Lesser known but deserving more attention are his great blues recorded with KC musicians for John Hammond on Vanguard in the 1960s.
Otherwise she recorded few blues, particularly in her most artistically developed period between 1934 and 1945. Indeed, Billie's lack of a blues repertoire and disinclination to perform blues cost her her position as female vocalist with the Count Basie Orchestra, a match made in heaven. While there were no doubt other factors involved, many Basieites especially Buck Clayton who was quite close to Billy have said Billie was replaced because she didn't perform enough blues to suit John Hammond who acted as de facto manager and AR man with the Basie band. Hammond replaced Billie Holiday with Helen Humes who had been recording blues for ten years before she joined Basie. Humes, of course, continued to record Blues with Basie, and then as an independent singer from then until her death keeping her magnificent jump blues alive for several generations of listeners. Clayton's complaint is a standard one leveled at white Jazz producers like Hammond and Norman Grantz that they wanted blues, not more harmonically developed music that Black Jazz musicians really wanted to play.
The blues is a specific genre of African American musical, poetic, and cultural expression with its own distinct history, evolution, and practices. Simply collapsing every Black performer into the Blues makes the blues meaningless and demeans the work of the millions of women and men who have created the blues in the last 110-120 years.
Another insult to Billie, is the tendency to see her as a "blues figure" because of her "tragic" life. This is the tendency to evaluate Billie as the public life disaster that she tended to milk in desperation in the last years of her life symbolized by the fake autobiography _Lady Sings the Blues_. This contrasts than the artistic consideration she deserved and received from other musicians and singers. She was a competent and practicing jazz artist, raised in the music business (her father complained he played guitar for every jazz artist in NYC in the 1930s and early 1940s but Billie. Her mother boarded musicians and catered musical parties). From a young age, Billie was considered as knowledgeable as the top instrumentalists of the music by those top instrumentalists.
Those who rely on the "tragedy" to induct Billie into the Blues express a greater ignorance given that as her own drug addiction advanced, her music had less and less of a connection with the blues, climaxing in "The Lady in Satin" which is a vain attempt to take The Lady into non-Jazz pop. All of her original blues were recorded in her pre-heroin youth in the 1930s, not in the 1950s when Billie's self-made "tragedy" had begun to destroy her voice and musicial viability and then her life.
It is quite bizarre for anyone to claim Billie's performance of Meeropol's song "Strange Fruit," has any relationship to blues music given her very straight reading of the tune, the unblueslike straight minor it is given, and the unjazzlike accompaniment. If one wants to see what a Blues Singer can do to this song, one needs to listen to the astounding version recorded by Josh White which is blusey and also more dramatic and satisfying than Holiday's more celebrated version. Holiday's performance of "Strange Fruit," tends to be elevated by folks for the justifiable political message the song provided and the controversy involved. However, an honest or even rational evaluation of the performance seems to be unavailable these days.
This raises yet another ignorance, the outsider's view that "The Blues" is always sad or "tragic." The immense body of the most popular blusicians--that is blues artists that Black people listened to-- of the 1930s like Memphis Minnie, Tampa Red, and Leroy Carr served up a bunch of pretty happy, often double entendre, blues. Blues music was overwhelmingly dance music, with performers not playing the three minute blues contemporary white blues wannabe's deduce from recordings, but 10 to even 30 minute versions of their songs for dancers from Juke Joints to the big ballrooms. Unfortunately, people who have never studied the blues as a real genre, misplace it as the solo moaning of the "existential Negro," rather than the jumping music of a century of African American Saturday nights.
As an African American performer of the blues and other Black traditional musics as well as a scholar of African American music tradition, this kind of non scientific, non-traditional, grab bag sloppiness about our music and our culture is a sign that even among our own, the outsider's false generalizations about the blues reign. You would think our own would know the score.
Poetics ARE Politics for many people. No exceptions here........2004-08-19
Davis work is a powerful re-reading of Blues women, and firmly places them in the center, rather than the margin, of Black oppositional and autonomous culture discourse. The book is mostly devoted to the work of Gertrude Rainey and Bessie Smith, but there are important sections devoted to Billie Holiday as well. In each case, the Davis argues for a more complete contextual understanding of Blues women music as introducing gender issues, breaking discursive taboos, and forging meaning within the context of an imagined community of Black women's lives.
To begin with, Davis convincingly argues that Blues women were on the vanguard in breaking down taboos concerning domestic violence and male subjugation, as many Blues songs concerned these matters. Davis uses powerful works such as "Rough and Tumble Blues," "See See Rider Blues," and "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair," to demonstrate that Blues women were willing to engage in oppositional, if allegorical, violence in the service of personal autonomy. Even man songs that seem to demonstrate acquiescence, even masochism, in the face of male abuse can be seen to have an ironic, subversive, or didactic quality that belies a simplistic surface reading.
Davis also takes on the common notion that Blues music doesn't include social protest, an interpretation that has been pushed by white commentators, such as Samuel Charters, and black commentators, such as Albert Murray. Davis argues that Blues music inherits from Slave musical culture a coded approach to naming and resistance that demands more than a surface analysis of the lyrics, and takes into account the role of music as a lyrical interlocuter. Focusing on tunes such as "Backwater Blues" and "Washwoman's Blues," Davis almost always effectively demonstrates that coded protest is still protest, and that women's blues historically anticipated and grounded mass movements in the areas of civil rights and feminism, while remaining linked with West African hermeneutic structure of naming and interpretation, such as "nommo."
In terms of Religious content, Davis forcefully recounts how women reconfigured a secular existential (or even "Devil's") music as prayer itself, magically and aesthetically conjured to exorcise emotions such as "the blues." At the same time, she harshly criticizes the Black church for adopting Christian dualisms concerning the moral status of body and spirit, which she sees as sexualized forms of racism and sexism--- since both blacks and women have been semiotically linked with earthiness and body as opposed to spirit by while male elites. Celebratory Sexuality, on the other hand, has always, according to Davis, been an oppositional aspect of black working-class consciousness. This extends beyond sexuality to an affirmation of Black folk religious life (such as Hoodoo) and crossing of class boundaries in the Blues, which Davis contends is a major reason Blues music was ignored and even distanced by Black elites during the Harlem Renaissance.
Davis's discussion of Billie Holiday is short (two chapters) but powerful, in which she argues that Holiday subversively appropriated the saccharine Tin Pan Alley love song format she was given as Slaves would have appropriated the English language upon their arrival in the North Americas. Holiday worked little in the formal Blues, but was nontheless grounded in the Blues idiom, from which she drew inspiration, and a subversive presentation of white romantic life to Black audiences. In this vein, such songs as "Strange Fruit" fit more coherently, and the ironic (and yet utopian) edge in her voice professes to the truth of Black women's lives, even in ways that on the surface seem to be feministically regressive.
There are isolated examples where Davis is less successful than at other times, but on the whole, her argumentation is strong and fearless, and her analogical and narrative analysis of the music along with lyrics adds, rather than detracts, from her argument.
Breaking ground.......2000-07-26
I have to agree with the reviewer from Turkey who wrote positively about Davis' "Strange Fruit" chapter in Blues Legacies. I recently wrote a term paper on the song Strange Fruit in which I referred to both David Margolick's recent release about Strange Fruit and Davis' Blues Legacies. I was very impressed with Davis' depiction of Holiday as an individual and an entertainer. It seemed that she brought a more well-rounded and objective perspective on the singer into the world of Billie Holiday biographies. Her take on the song and on Holiday's connection to it are, shall we say, refreshing, in that it takes a novel approach to the singer -- one that attempts to remain impartial to the popular image of Holiday. This book is also an excellent reference for those studying feminism, jazz, Afro-Americana and/or the lives of the three women (Rainey, Holiday and Smith) showcased in Davis' Blues Legacies.
A wonderful analysis of Strange Fruit and Billie Holiday.......2000-03-28
If you expect to read a traditional biography you may be dissappointed. The lives of the blues women and their political messages behind their songs are discussed in one another's light. This works very well as blues is a folk music which tells many things about the black experience and most singers are song writers themselves. The section about Billie Holiday and her song Strange Fruit is one of the rare approaches to Lady Day as an artist who gave a very important political messages about racism. In other biographies Billie Holiday is always portrayed as a victim rather than a person who had an important political message. I believe this very style of her portrayal could be discussed in a feminist context and that's what Angela Davies did in this book with her vast knowledge and experience in black politics and gender issues. Some people criticize the book for being overtly political. However, I see no other way of analyzing the blues without its political context. The transcriptions of the songs also gives a documentary value to this book. It has been a great reference for my research in this field. I wish I can get in touch with Angela Davies one day and discuss her about the research she has done while preparing this book.
Permission and Intent.......2000-03-07
Davis' title explains her project in clear terms at the outset. She is not engaged in a critique of modern women in popular music (as one reviewer anticipated). Nor is she profiling these women in biography format. Therefore, she does not need the permission of Rainey's relatives for this project. Her goal is to uncover the pre-feminist sentiments expressed in these women's music. In that regard, she needs only the barest biographical information (that women performers were not rooted to hearth and home, traveled, worked, and had marquee positions). Assuming this general information to be true of all these women, Davis then concentrates her primary energy on the legacy that blues lyrics leave for Black Feminism. Part of that legacy is found in the advice on romance, religion, and race that these women's songs shared (or share now) with black female listeners. I hope this gives readers an accurate idea of what to expect from this worthwhile book and encourages disappointed readers to re-encounter the book on its own terms.
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Strangers in the Night: A Brief History of Life on Other Worlds (Cornelia & Michael Bessie Series)
David E. Fisher , and
Marshall Jon Fisher
Manufacturer: Counterpoint Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1887178872 |
Amazon.com
Every one of us with an ounce of imagination has wondered, at least once or twice, whether or not living things make their homes... up there. Life on other planets is simply too compelling a subject to let go, and so we spend hundreds of millions of dollars looking for its traces. This search has been documented by the father-son team of cosmochemist David E. Fisher and writer Marshall Jon Fisher with Strangers in the Night, a clever, scientifically rigorous look at the evidence and the explorers hoping to answer the question "Does intelligent life exist elsewhere (or anywhere) in the universe?"
From the lunar canals "discovered" by Schiaperelli in the 19th century to SETI to the Martian meteorite, the Fishers paint a picture of scientists struggling with the excitements and disappointments inherent to their work. Forced to draw inferences from the barest traces of indirect evidence, researchers from fields as diverse as oceanography, cosmology, and microbiology have banded together to develop the still-emerging discipline of exobiology. With a fair and competent assessment of the evidence, Strangers in the Night tells us that, though the answer to the question "are we alone?" is still elusive, we are coming ever closer and may just know for sure before long.
Keep watching the skies! --Rob Lightner
Customer Reviews:
Do-be-do-be-do.......2000-03-29
An informative and engaging account of the history of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. This is the sort of book that whets your appetite for more research and funding as well as for more information on the subject. I was particularly impressed with their style - clear, entertaining and thorough. It made me want to read more of their books, whatever the topic. A highly recommended book for folks interested in science but afraid of the math.
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I Love You
Bessie P. Gutmann
Manufacturer: Grosset & Dunlap
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0448401436 |
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- Nobody Owns the Sky
- Inspirational
- Wow!
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Nobody Owns the Sky: The Story of "Brave Bessie" Coleman
Reeve Lindbergh
Manufacturer: Candlewick
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Similar Items:
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Fly High! The Story Of Bessie Coleman
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Talkin' About Bessie
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Secret Signs: Along the Underground Railroad
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By the Side of the Road
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The Way to Make Perfect Mountains: Native American Legends of Sacred Mountains
ASIN: 0763603619
Release Date: 1998-01-06 |
Book Description
Stock up for Black History Month and Women's History Month!
As a young black woman in the 1920s, Bessie Coleman's chances of becoming a pilot were slim. But she never let her dream die and became the first licensed African-American aviator. Reeve Lindbergh honors her memory with a poem that sings of her accomplishment. With bold illustrations by Pamela Paparone, NOBODY OWNS THE SKY will inspire readers to follow their dreams.
Customer Reviews:
Nobody Owns the Sky.......2002-04-04
This book was about a young colored girl whose dream was to fly in the sky like the birds. It tells her tale about how she finally was able to fly even though everyone always was told her that she couldn't. I like this book because it involved both the difficulties of the different races and genders. The young colored girl ends up having to go to Paris to learn to fly and even though she dies in one of her flights she was still able to influence other young girls. After reading the book I felt motivated and empowered. The author teaches young to always stay stead fast to their dreams even if others around them tell them it can't happen
Inspirational.......2000-05-16
Great springboard for discussions about equity, following your heart, and beleiving in yourself. Bessie is a woman who is just now getting her rightful place in history. This book would be a great addition to classroom career, aviation or reading center.
Wow!.......2000-03-25
Absolutely awesome picture book biography! Told in verse and beautifully illustrated, the historical link between author and subject makes for an amazing teaching tool in the classroom! This book is so very underrated in the public's eyes. Buy a class set for your classroom!
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