Amazon.com
She had herself committed to an insane asylum, circled the globe in 72 days, and worked as an elephant trainer, all for a good story. Nellie Bly (1864-1922) was the most famous female reporter of her day, and a pioneering businesswoman (she started the first steel-barrel manufacturing plant in the U.S.). Journalist Kroeger's formidably well-researched book, based on legal and archival material as well as Bly's more than 600 newspaper and magazine articles, paints a compelling portrait of a woman who learned early not to rely on men, yet coupled her can-do spirit with a vivacious femininity that endeared her to readers during a 37-year career.
Book Description
Now in paperback--the acclaimed biography of Nellie Bly, the "thrilling account of a trailblazer" (Pat Morrison, Los Angeles Times Book Review). "Kroeger's biography of Nellie Bly moves at almost as fast a pace as did Bly's remarkable life."--Mindy Spatt, San Francisco Chronicle. Photos & illustrations.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Customer Reviews:
a biography for scholars.......2007-05-27
This is the only scholarly biography of Nellie Bly available. It is carefully researched and documented, and presents a nuanced and composite picture of Nellie Bly. It is not a splashy story, which is probably why the other reviewers found it dull and dry. For research purposes, however, that's a very good thing. An excellent bibliography points interested researchers to secondary and primary sources.
Bummer!.......2000-06-15
While Nellie Bly was certainly a compelling character, and the biography clearly well-researched, the author presents her subject in a dull, lifeless manner. After waiting for years to read a comprehensive work about someone I have always found so fascinating, I was terribly disappointed.
Fascinating Tale of a Remarkable Lady's Life.......1998-07-09
Nellie Bly (born Elizabeth Jane Cochran) was a very interesting lady. I chose her for my report, and this was the most helpful book. I didn't think I'd want to read the whole book through, but I did since Bly's life was so exciting!
Amazon.com
When Chang Yu-I was three her mother tried to bind her feet. But the child's cries so tormented her brother that he convinced their mother to stop. This break with convention foreshadowed the extraordinary life Yu-i was to lead. After following her husband, poet Hsu Chi-Mo, a noted philanderer, to Oxford, she made history by becoming the first Chinese woman to have a western-style divorce at age 22. Determined to make her own way, she moved to America and served in a series of prestigious positions, including president of a bank. Written by Yu-i's great niece, Pang-Mei Natasha Chang,
Bound Feet and Western Dress chronicles the life of this exceptional woman.
Book Description
"In China, a woman is nothing."
Thus begins the saga of a woman born at the turn of the century to a well-to-do, highly respected Chinese family, a woman who continually defied the expectations of her family and the traditions of her culture. Growing up in the perilous years between the fall of the last emperor and the Communist Revolution, Chang Yu-i's life is marked by a series of rebellions: her refusal as a child to let her mother bind her feet, her scandalous divorce, and her rise to Vice President of China's first women's bank in her later years.
In the alternating voices of two generations, this dual memoir brings together a deeply textured portrait of a woman's life in China with the very American story of Yu-i's brilliant and assimilated grandniece, struggling with her own search for identity and belonging. Written in pitch-perfect prose and alive with detail, Bound Feet and Western Dress is the story of independent women struggling to emerge from centuries of customs and duty.
Customer Reviews:
Top-Hats, Half-Moons, and the Painful Glint of Changes.......2007-07-17
Change can be a frightening affair, and looking back at change can be something that seems almost alien when beheld in the light of certain convictions. That seems to encapsulate the whole of the experience that Chang Yu-I talks about as she tries to explain something of who she is to her granddaughter, Pang-Mei, and it is one of the things that seemed to haunt me as a reader as I listened to Yu-I's tale. The chapters switch from Yu-I to Pang-Mei to give you and idea of how things have changed and to try to identify one person with the other, and I have to say that I found myself glued to the pages and not able to stop reading this book. At first I simply thought it was a story about a granddaughter wanting to explore her grandmother's life because she was the first person to have a Western-style divorce in China, and maybe that was her reason beginning the book. Still, the book goes well beyond that and touches on the dynamics of change and strength and how strong a person can be even when they think they are at their weakest.
Honestly, I thought I could vicariously feel my heart cracking under the weight of some of Yu-I's confessions, amazed by some of the things she was able to tell her granddaughter.
One of the best things about this tale is the detail that Yu-I goes into about China, and about the way things were seen in the past versus the way things became seen as war loomed on the horizon. Yu-I gives a great amount of detail about what it was like to be a child in a country like China, and she vividly recollects what its like to have one's feet bound and the reasons why this practice took place. All that breaking and rebreaking, the tying of the big toe over and over again; when I read this I cringed because it seemed so debilitating just to have a crescent-shape added to the foot. Furthering this are pictures in the book, showing what the feet actually look like when this happens - you can see the shriveled remains of feet that look almost mummified, and you can tell some of the extremes that went into making a foot look like that. Yu-I talks about the pain that's she, herself, experienced because of this practice, too; she tells her granddaughter about being three and having her mother try to bind her feet, and then talks about the torment of those moments and how it was her brother that made her stop this because he couldn't deal with her suffering. Yu-I goes on to tell of the pain that this caused her, too, with her always feeling as if she were ugly because she had "big feet" and "big feet" made a person almost untouchable when it comes to marriage. Still, she does marry the poet Hsu Chi-Mo and, for a time, she thinks this is perfect and learns the rites of being a wife. She cares for the mother-in-law, she takes care of the husband's family; basically she becomes a slave and thinks that this dedication is seem by her husband as love. It is only when she moves to a foreign country with her husband that she finds out what he is like and how she is alone, and when she understands that she is utterly abandoned she explains how it feels to want to die.
There are other painful things in the book, too, things I can't disclose without messing up part of the tale, but I can say that when she is in Germany and loses something more dear to her than anything that this was devastating to read, making the book almost too heavy to pick up because its honesty was like a barb in the soul. I appreciated that, to be honest, and can say that I have read a lot of pieces of literature but that I have rarely encountered a person like Yu-I that both loves the world she lives in, understands the things that she has experienced, and even knows what forgiveness is like.
While this normally would not be something I would recommend, it has my highest recommendation and the most humble form of respect I can give, thinking it an enduring read that really has something to say.
I cannot give the book or the voice behind it enough praise.
Let's See by Clare M........2006-12-13
Bound Feet and Western Dress by Pang-Mei Natasha Chang is about a young girl who has a unique relationship with her great aunt, Chang Yu-i. She first meets her great aunt in 1874, at a family dinner. Chang Yu-i had just come to New York after having lived in China, and then Hong Kong. Several family members had come to these dinners in the past, but this was the first time Pang-Mei had met her great aunt. Pang-Mei explains how the family refers to Chang Yu-i as "half man" because of her strength and persistence. Pang-Mei grew closer to her great aunt as time passed, but she still knew very little about her. She first discovered some of Chang Yu-i's secrets while studying Chinese History at Harvard University. She learned that her great aunt had been married to a well-known romantic poet in China, as well as issued the first "real divorce" in Chinese History. After Pang-Mei learned of this, she asked Chang Yu-i about it at once. Her great aunt told her hundreds of stories about her life in China eventually unraveling over a long period of time. Pang-Mei and Chang Yu-i build a strong relationship together and learn about each other, as well as themselves. Pang-Mei comes to love and grasp the heritage she once tried to hide and Chang Yu-i understands herself better after having told her own stories. They are finally brought together even closer by a major phenomenon that takes place in the end.
I found Bound Feet and Western Dress to be rather tedious. Personally, I find books that dives right into the plot to be the most enjoyable. Bound Feet and Western Dress eased slowly into the excitement. However, I found this book be written with great enthusiasm and detail. Pang-Mei Natasha Chang used delightful details that gave me a perfect picture of the context. On Page 9, Chang Yu-i tells her grand niece about the strict rules she grew up with, "Chinese paintings required admiration form above, Baba said, explaining that the perspective of Chinese paintings differed from Western ones. The best paintings were only hung when your grandfather, Eighth Brother, and I cleaned them, passing tiny feather dusters over the surface of the rice paper. Of all the children, you grandfather and I were the two that Baba allowed near his paintings, and her would hover behind us as we worked, explaining the genius behind a musty mountain landscape or historical portrait." This excerpt shows the details the author used to represent her great aunt's stories.
The stories of Chang Yu-i told were also extremely touching. Not only did they paint a precise image in my mind of her life but were also genuine. For instance, when she was telling of her childhood and growing up with her large family her descriptions were beautifully written and conveyed. I loved hearing of her two favorite brothers personalities and what each of them gave her. I fully understood her thoughts and joy while talking about her brothers.
Generally, I think Bound Feet and Western Dress is a thoughtful and well-written book. It is historical and educating as well as a good read. I would suggest it be read.
A Filial Memoir.......2005-06-20
From what I've read about Chinese culture, the ties that bind a family together are one of its strongest and most enforced traditions. "Bound Feet and Western Dress" is an interesting memoir for the fact that it does not read like a memoir at all. It is the story of a great-aunt told to her great-niece, who mixes in her own observations about her aunt's life and her experience as a Chinese-American among her narrative.
"Bound Feet and Western Dress" tells the story of the author's great-aunt, Chang Yu-i. Born in 1900, Yu-i was the first woman in her family to refuse to have her feet bound. Despite being modern in this aspect, she is stunted and traditional in her upbringing, her education, and the way she acts in her first marriage. She is famous for having perhaps the first "modern" divorce in China and is determined to make it on her own from that point on. No one in her family truly knows her story until her great-niece asks her to tell it.
What passes between the two of them may not be a ground-breaking, fascinating story but is rather a quiet reflection on growing up in a changing time. Yu-i struggles through a great majority of her life to be both modern and traditional, to do what is 'right and expected' and to do what she wanted to do. She is an inspiration to her great-niece, a first generation Chinese-American who feels at home with neither nationality. The intersections of the author's remembrances of past encumbrances fit nicely with Yu-i's struggle to bridge the past with the new. "Bound Feet and Western Dress" offers a poignant look at the role that women have played in China and how they are defining themselves today.
Irritating narrative, badly written book.......2005-04-04
The idea was good but Natasha simply didn't have the talent to put it in written and understandable text. She switches all the time the "I", got me confused about who she was talking about, her or her aunt.She mixed both stories, suddenly she wants to explains her "great destiny" (narcissism) at the same time as she tells the strory about her great aunt. Those second, third, fourth, xth brother's wife, sister, uncles, all irritating narrative. I really tried to like the story, to pick and read and just gave me headaches trying to figure it out whose story she is talking. Go back to school. I don't know how the editor accepts this kind of book to be published, need a lot of editing. Maybe someone in the publishing house is her relative.
A good book, because it is a true story........2004-04-05
I enjoyed the auuthor's simple writing style. The story is about a woman who decides whether or not to make her own life, or allow it to be decided for her. The best thing about this book, is that it is a true story. The book was fast reading, and very inspirational. I would reccommend it.
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- A pleasure to read
- A CLASSIC WOMANIST MANIFESTO!
- A Portrait without Air-brushing
- If My Soul Be Lost: LOVED EVERY LETTER!
- fresh, honest, and strong
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If My Soul Be Lost: A Self Portrait
Dr. Nandi S. Crosby
Manufacturer: BookSurge Publishing
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ASIN: 0719959152
Release Date: 2007-02-14 |
Book Description
Dr. Nandi S. Crosby currently works as a tenured university professor of Women's Studies and Sociology. If My Soul Be Lost chronicles her experiences growing up in a emotionally troubled home, as the daughter of an addict, as a female correctional officer in a maximum security prison for men, and it examines her struggles with sex and pregnancy prior to the age of 15. From a feminist perspective, the author discusses how she emerged as a successful scholar, activist, and writer. As a seasoned African American sociologist from the lower working class, she was able to unabashedly link the politics of sex, race, and power to generate this compelling story, written with the cacophony and verve of written-for-stage poetry.
Customer Reviews:
A pleasure to read.......2007-07-25
I enjoyed every moment of this nostalgic ride back down memory lane. Dr. Crosby is telling it like it is, without pretense or exaggeration. Well done my sister and keep em coming.
Antoine C.
A CLASSIC WOMANIST MANIFESTO!.......2007-04-21
This is the best biography that I have ever read. Dr. Crosby pens sheer passion and political poetry as she describes her awesome life. This hynpotic book defined, validated, and soothed all of the pain and isolation that I have ever felt as an African-American womanist. It also expertly exposed rabid colorism, sexism, and elitism in Egypt. This book is a masterful gift to womanist word singers and wounded African-American female souls...
[...].
Dr Crosby: Thank you for penning this masterpiece!
Alicia Banks
A Portrait without Air-brushing.......2007-04-08
Dr. Crosby's self-examination of feminism, class divides, and sexual power struggles in "If My Soul Be Lost", was an amazing and raw journey to read. I find it very inspiring for someone to bare all, while keeping the context intact. No melodrama here. For me, it was a chance to think even more critically where I fit, as a feminist, as a gay, white male, and as a professional who is looking for more. Excellent national debut, what a beautiful portrait.
If My Soul Be Lost: LOVED EVERY LETTER!.......2007-03-23
If My Soul Be Lost encapsulated everything that I think, breath, and feel as an educated, young, feminist, black woman. Thank you for writing an inspiring self-portrait that provides a place for me as well. Few contemporary works are able to accurately and poignantly depict the realities that many young black women face as this text has. So intensely profound I read it in one sitting . I cannot say much more but that I loved every letter of it....
fresh, honest, and strong.......2007-03-21
A well-written piece, that will/does capture a portrait of many lives. She reminds you over and over again, that she is still becoming a whole person, which is something most forget. Dr. Crosby speaks to every women/man struggling to create themselves from the inside out. This book kept my attention, with humor and a well-captured, well-executed sadness. She uncovers feminist concepts and ideas we all question, but "no one ever says so outloud." I recommend this book to anyone who has ever questioned their journey as a women, but most of all as a women.
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Gaslight
Carol Guess
Manufacturer: Odd Girls Press
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Switch
ASIN: 1887237054 |
Book Description
Carol Guess has composed, from glass-edged fragments of her life and her work as a creative artist, the mosaic of a woman who has fought to be her true self. A nonfiction collection wrapped around a novella called "Fat Rosie and Rose," it documents the impact of sexism and homophobia on her professional and personal lives, and uses fictional characters to play out the events.
Her adversaries have been many, and formidable. There were those who dictated the ideal shape of her female body and the correct dimensions of her sexuality as she emerged from a childhood in the south, ensnared in sexual exploitation and a spiral of anorexia. The teachers who attempted to extinguish her ambition and identity as a creative artist--because female writing could not possibly rise above the trivial--played their part. And the politics of art and sexuality continue to litter her path as a lesbian academic and a serious artist.
Like no other book, "Gaslight" shares each step of the interior process of creation and of failing to create: the process of becoming a writer. In this extraordinary and unforgettable work, Carol Guess brilliantly illuminates the path to art and to individuality.
Customer Reviews:
Surfacing.......2002-05-21
As the novel she was writing self-destructed on the page, Guess found herself adrift and at a loss as to why it failed. While trying to figure this out, and writing through the reasons, a new work emerged, "Gaslight", which is a gorgeous blend of memoir and fiction. Chronicling her struggles with anorexia, with homophobia and sexism, and with the politics of her art, Guess shares with us the process of creativity and its effects on the artist at work. Like the water that flows through that failed novel, "Gaslight" has a hidden strength, a luminous beauty, a kaleidoscope of muted colors that speaks volumes without dragging the readers away on riptides. This buoyant work reminds us of the power of words, especially in the lives of the marginalized (women, queers, the poor). It quenches and nourishes like water, and supports us as we reach for the surface for that breath of crisp air.
Disappointing.......2002-03-27
I read the author's last novel, Switch, and loved it. This memoir, or really a mix of memoir and fiction, doesn't measure up. We don't get anything new about anorexia, sexism, homophobia. I enjoyed the Southern family history sections, but the rest seemed too familiar. Carol Guess says she admires Carole Maso and Rebecca Brown, and I'd recommend those writers or Switch over this book.
Book Description
In this play, historian and playwright Howard Zinn dramatizes the life of Emma Goldman, the anarchist, feminist, and free-spirited thinker who was exiled from the United States because of her outspoken views, including her opposition to World War I.
With his wit and unique ability to illuminate history from below, Zinn reveals the life of this remarkable woman. As Zinn writes in his Introduction, Emma Godman "seemed to be tireless as she traveled the country, lecturing to large audiences everywhere, on birth control ("A woman should decide for herself"), on the falsity of marriage as an institution ("Marriage has nothing to do with love"), on patriotism ("the last refuge of a scoundrel") on free love ("What is love if not free?") and also on the drama, including Shaw, Ibsen, and Strindberg. This book will be of immense interest to feminists, American historians, and people interested in the long history of resistance and protest in the United States.
Howard Zinn is professor emeritus at Boston University. He is the author of the classic A People's History of the United States. A television adaptation of the book is currently being co-produced by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Chris Moore for HBO. Zinn has received the Lannan Foundation Literary Award for Nonfiction and the Eugene V. Debs award for his writing and political activism. Zinn is the author of the internationally acclaimed play Marx in Soho, which has been touring the country in performance since its release.
Customer Reviews:
Accurate and Needed but..........2003-11-04
Zinn does an excellent job of introducing readers to Goldman, Berkman, Most, Reitman and others. Readers get an accurate sense of their personalities and concerns, a consequence of Zinn's ability to adapt actual source material in the dialogue.
The problem with play is that its intention seems to almost entirely consist in introducing readers to Goldman et al. Although that is a worthy aim, the play itself lacks the dramatic tension necessary to lend cohesion to its snapshots of Goldman's life. The play seems loosely organized around Berkman's incarceration and Goldman's erotic relationships. Because these events happened over several years, the play attempts to cover too much time and, consequently, lacks the dramatic intensity of a shortened time frame.
Still, for anyone who loves and studies Goldman (as I do), this is a must read. It's clear that Zinn fully appreciates the greatness of this much-neglected radical.
Book Description
A collection of stories for anyone who shuddered at the idea of senior prom, REVENGE OF THE PASTE EATERS is about the way the experiences of childhood stay with us and shape us into adults. Cheryl Peck applies her signature wit to more personal stories and reflectionsabout hurting people and getting hurt, about discovering who you are and who you want to be, about feeling not good enough, and about being biggerphysically and mentallythan many of the people surrounding you. This is a wickedly funny view of what its like to be a middle-aged woman in middle-America, and what really happened to the kids who were different.
Customer Reviews:
Hilarious!.......2007-10-10
Cheryl Peck's used to getting the short stick - she grew up overweight, unpopular and the eldest of five children (her parents' "test child," as she dubs it).
This collection of short essays -- vignettes, if you will -- take readers from Peck's childhood memories to adulthood, working in Social Services and spending time with her Beloved and her adored narcissistic cat Babycakes. (Several stories, in fact, are told in Babycakes' viewpoint.) Peck especially focuses upon growing up as one of three stairstep girls (she refers to youngest sister as the Wee One and the middle sister as the UnWee), and relates a number of opinions and experiences from her lesbian viewpoint.
Peck is a talented storyteller, and it's hard not to relate to her! Give this collection a try, and you're bound to laugh, ponder life and go through a gamut of other emotions, all at the same time.
A Fun, Easy Read..........2006-04-06
The book is organized into essays that read like really well-written blog posts. The author is lots of fun, and some of the stories she offers are both poignant and hilarious. Some of it can be a bit repetitive, but not so much as to annoy. If you're looking for some light reading and you're fairly openminded, you should definitely go for this one.
When a sequel is actually better.......2006-03-12
Overall, I liked this collection better than the first one. That having been said, I'd recommend reading "Fat Girls" first to become acquainted with the author's family. My favorite here was the transgender piece.
Witty and Insightful.......2006-03-07
Revenge of the Paste Eaters is a collection of witty, insightful and heartwarming essays about the author's life. Cheryl Peck pokes fun at herself, her family, her Midwestern upbringing, her insecurities and even her cat, but there is no malice in her words, and some of us can relate to the topics she chooses.
In "a gathering of porcupines," she tells us how her family communicates: "...writing always includes the ability to edit or erase before the final result is visible to the world...talking is a matter of just throwing yourself out there as you come, naked and unpolished, trusting your soul to the whims of the gods. The world is full of people who are entirely comfortable doing that. None of these people are related to me." The essay, "the epidemic" hit home for me as a Midwesterner as she defines one: "... my people live by three simple rules: work hard, wait for your turn, if you feel a need to talk about something, go plow a field until the need passes."
The collection of essays is a quick and lively read; most of them lasting one to six pages. No topic is untouchable, but Peck spends more than one story on her mother and her untimely death, her cat, growing old gracefully, her grandmothers, and her weight. She also reveals her coming out process in "how I came out," by writing, "It took me three weeks of conscious practice to use the word `lesbian' in a sentence that did not also include the word `not'. It took me six months to make a deliberate effort to meet another lesbian...''
While Peck repeats some themes and jumps around to different topics in no particular order, the anecdotes are fresh and down to earth. They are real and stripped of any pretense. She also doesn't take herself too seriously for the most part, but the stories are thoughtful, especially when discussing her mother whom she misses, as told in "my mentor."
Revenge of the Paste Eater is the kind of book some of us wish we had the guts to write, exposing our imperfect selves and letting others laugh at us. It takes a courageous author to bear herself honestly for all to read. Cheryl Peck does this with grace and panache. For anyone wanting a good laugh and words that make one pause, this delightful book is well worth the time.
Funny, Powerful, Sometimes Disturbing, Always Engaging .......2006-02-16
Ah! The paste eaters. Those misfit children who everyone delights to torment.
Cheryl Peck's new memoirs feel like letters from an old friend. From the reliability of old cars to strange psychic encounters and the nature of cats to the many uses of Dremels, she never fails to delight with tales from her life.
Peck mixes stories of her childhood with stories of her present. She relates the struggle of growing up with a hypercritical mother and a distant father. She also tells about her unending challenge to fit into an unforgiving world.
"Shopping" tells how for years her entire wardrobe fit in a WWII parachute bag. Even after attaining a job in a welfare office, she still dressed as close to the bottom of the fashion chain as possible. Shortly after the publication of her first book, a friend locks her in a clothing store with two clerks who wait on her hand and foot.
In "Fatso" we get a taste of what it's like to be discriminated against because of size. Peck provides a list of bad manners she has been forced to endure by denying that she, as a middle class white person, has ever experienced any of them. It is one of the most thought provoking chapters of the book.
"The Kitten," perhaps the most moving of her memoirs, falls near the end. It relates a moment from her childhood that gives insight into her person and neatly ties together the rest of the stories.
At times, Peck comes across as whiny. Her feminist sermonizing and constant complaining can hamper enjoyment of the book.
However, her writing style is virtually flawless. Each story from the book grabs our interest and refuses to let go until the last word. But we can't stop there. Completing one chapter leads us to desire the next.
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"Do Everything" Reform: The Oratory of Frances E. Willard (Great American Orators)
Richard W. Leeman
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
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ASIN: 0313274878 |
Book Description
This is the first study of the reform oratory of the "silver-tongued" temperance leader, Frances Willard. It provides a critical analysis of the speaking style of this influential late nineteenth century suffragette, prohibitionist, and leader of women. This work also provides texts of representative speeches, a chronology of important speeches, and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The critical analysis points first to Frances Willard's belief in evolutionary Christianity and the equal treatment of women as the basis for her oratory. The study then examines how women's broadening concerns for reform were justified as a response to women's needs to protect their homes. Her campaigns for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and "the woman question" and her speeches calling for changes on behalf of labor and to overcome poverty also figure prominently in the analysis. The eloquent speaking style which conveyed her passionate interest in these issues is then exemplified by the texts of six speeches made between 1874 and 1897. As part of Greenwood's Great American Orators Series, this study is intended for students and professionals in rhetoric and communications, women's studies, and history focusing on American reform movements.
Book Description
Was she a selfless political activist? A feminist heroine? A gifted writer who rose from poverty to become a leading journalist and author of the cult classic Daughter of Earth? A spy for the Soviet Union? Or all of these things? Drawing on fifteen years of intensive research and unprecedented access to previously unpublished documents, this vibrant book brings to life one of the twentieth century's most fascinating women. Ruth Price traces Agnes Smedley's unlikely trajectory from a small Missouri town to the coal country of Colorado; to Berkeley and Greenwich Village; to Berlin, Moscow, and China. Fueled by a fury at injustice, Smedley threw herself headlong into the crucial issues of the time, from Indian independence to birth control, women's rights, and the revolution in China. Her friends included such figures as Margaret Sanger, Langston Hughes, Emma Goldman, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mao Zedong, and many others. Perhaps most important, Price uncovers an astonishing truth: Smedley, long thought to be the unfair target of a Cold War smear campaign, was indeed guilty of the espionage charges leveled against her by General Douglas MacArthur and others. Smedley worked to foment armed revolution in India and gathered intelligence for the Soviet Union, seeing it as a bulwark against fascism. Price argues that Smedley acted out of a passionate idealism and that she exhibited a courage and compassion worthy of a renewed, if more complicated, admiration today. Epic in scope, painstakingly researched, and unflinchingly honest, The Lives of Agnes Smedley offers a stunning reappraisal of one of America's most controversial Leftists and a new look at the troubled historical terrain of the first half of the twentieth century.
Customer Reviews:
A life and a book I will never forget............2005-02-02
Just finished reading THE LIVES OF AGNES SMEDLEY. What a tremendous achievement! I was moved, fascinated, inspired, and impressed by it. Every bit of the years of the research by author Price comes through. I knew nothing about the Chinese Revolution, yet the history is as vivid as Agnes Smedley's humanity - her hopes, joys, loves, despairs, fears, and most strikingly - her growth as a human being. It's a life and a book I will never forget.
Amazon.com
bell hooks, who teaches English at New York's City College, is well-known as an abrasive, take-no-prisoners feminist cultural critic. In this moving memoir of her childhood she explains the roots of her forceful and rigorous attitude to life and literature. She grew up in a poor Southern black family, an heir to poverty and racism, surrounded by people too wrapped up in their own struggles to offer much help to her. She writes here of her mother's suffering in an abusive marriage, of her siblings' rejection of her for being "different," of her own painful discovery of sexuality, and of how she found escape through books.
Book Description
Stitching together girlhood memories with the finest threads of innocence, feminist intellectual bell hooks presents a powerfully intimate account of growing up in the South. A memoir of ideas and perceptions, Bone Black shows the unfolding of female creativity and one strong-spirited child's journey toward becoming a writer. She learns early on the roles women and men play in society, as well as the emotional vulnerability of children. She sheds new light on a society that beholds the joys of marriage for men and condemns anything more than silence for women. In this world, too, black is a woman's color-worn when earned-daughters and daddies are strangers under the same roof, and crying children are often given something to cry about. hooks finds good company in solitude, good company in books. She also discovers, in the motionless body of misunderstanding, that writing is her most vital breath.
Customer Reviews:
Memories with imagination and maturity.......2007-05-23
bell hooks is known for her many books on the politics of art and culture. This addition is more about the processing of becoming a mature thoughtful writer. Her road was a painful one but all that she experienced fortified her work process and personality. There is some beautiful visual writing and depth in bell hooks' bone black.
GREAT BOOK, GREAT AUTHOR.......2002-10-24
This book is especially for intelligent black females, but is for all who want to understand the pains of growing up being a poor black female.
you know her work, now get to know the author.......2001-01-28
I couldn't stop turning the pages of this brutally honest tale of a black, southern, woman who grows up knowing that she is diffrent. And therefore, her life will be diffrent.
This little book gives an intimate look, at the writer some say is the most prolific writer on race, gender and class. hooks, uses words extremely cautiously whick makes this piece on you simply can't put down.
Eat this book!
you know her work, now get to know the author.......2001-01-28
I couldn't stop turning the pages of this brutally honest tale of a black, southern, woman who grows up knowing that she is different. And therefore, her life will be different.
This little book gives an intimate look, at the writer some say is the most prolific writer on race, gender and class. hooks, uses words extremely cautiously whick makes this piece on you simply can't put down.
...
A prose experiment that suceeds in providing insight.......2000-08-03
At first, I found the uniformly sized (3-page) chunks of invoking with stripped-down sentences in bell hook's Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood somewhat affectless and very structurally arbitrary. Hemingway sprang to mind, but then I thought of Stein's syntax (and the role she claimed in forming Hemingway's style). Hooks's repetitions are more subtle, and perhaps her prose is, too, because eventually I found it compelling. The pain of being different while young and vulnerable came through the chilly prose.
What she describes of female complicity in male privilege is particularly frightening and compelling. She experienced little female solidarity, being rejected by her five sisters and never able to please her mother (who agreed with her father that her spirit needed to be broken).
Average customer rating:
- A Misguided effort to expose racism in the Church.
- A Worlderful Story of Faith and Courage
- Blazing a trail for racial reconciliation through story.
- These stores will open your eyes
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I Call You Friend: Four Women's Stories of Race, Faith, and Friendship
Pamela Toussaint , and
Jo Kadlecek
Manufacturer: Broadman & Holman Publishers
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Binding: Paperback
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Customer Reviews:
A Misguided effort to expose racism in the Church........2003-10-30
My initial understanding of this book is that the contributors desire to bring to light the problem of racism in the American Church. Each one of the ladies describes her struggle with race issues in her own life, how God and faith helped her to over come those struggles, and now they all wish to help other Christians overcome those similar struggles.
Though I believe the contributors are sincere with the presentation of their individual testimonies, I believe the book fails as a serious, biblical means to confront racism in the Christian Church.
First, I resent the notion, which was threaded throughout the book, that Christians, particularly white, middle class Christians, are denying the hidden sin of racism in their heart. I totally reject that. All true racists are not struggling with the hidden sin of racism; their racism is out there for all to see. This attitude is not characteristic of the majority of Bible believing Christians in the United States.
In reality, I believe Christians struggle with loving one another, but it is not caused by a hidden motive of racism. The reason men mistreat men is that they are sinners, (Rom. 1:29-32, Mark 7:20-23, etc.). People are self-centered. Even after salvation, a Christian may labor with this malady. We are selfish, and we desire to be with folks we are comfortable with, and I believe it is regardless of race. This is something that should be eliminated in a believer's life, not by confessing hidden sins of racism that do not really exist, but as a Christian walks in the Spirit, puts off the old man and puts on the new (Rom. 6, Col. 3).
Secondly, the book places any discrimination or separation between people in a "racist" category. In other words, any true discrimination between people is due to racism and it alone. That is too narrow an accusation. Though it is politically incorrect to point this out, there is more discrimination done to people apart from the issues of race. A good example of such discrimination is that experienced by the mentally and physically disabled. They experience discrimination way beyond what any racial minority has probably experienced. Of course they have wheel chair access to buildings and the ability to park next to the front door, however these people are for the most part shunned by the general populace. People are uncomfortable just being around them. Their arms are twisted by paralysis and it may even be that they cannot communicate at all verbally. Yes, "normal" people will sometimes acknowledge them by giving a condescending, "Hi, how are you?" But, it is usually a pleasantry given so as to be able to move on and not have to deal with an uncomfortable situation.
I also had a serious problem with the 23 ways to improve cross-racial relationships listed at the end of the book encouraging an ecumenical, racial unity. The 8th suggestion, for example, is to march in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade. Why would I want to do that? First, I am mixing my faith with an event that is primarily political. But secondly, I would never want to join in solidarity with people who are pretty much opposed to my world-view and what is best for mankind. My beliefs go against everything Jesse Jackson and other members of the NAACP who sponsor MLKJr Day believe. That is not a matter of me being a racist, but stems from my faith and convictions.
On a personal note, I personally knew one of the contributors to this book during my time in college. We attended Church together, as well as various Bible studies, and we shared many of the same friends. When my old friends and I read through the book, we were absolutely stunned by the subtle accusations that we were all secret racists who refused to admit it. Many of the illustration this contributor pulled from her time in college to demonstrate this accusation were either exaggerated, or contrived altogether. We were all extremely hurt by what we viewed as a betrayal of sorts on her part.
I want to respect these four gals and the effort they put forth to confront racism among Christians, but I believe their effort is both misplaced, and misguided. Instead of striving to create racial reconciliation, Christians need to return to creating redemptive reconciliation. That is the only way man is going to overcome his hatred and prejudice. He needs a new heart, not new advice on being a better person. If Christians have an attitude against another group, then they need to be shown from scripture why that is a sin and be rebuked for such attitudes. 1 John 3 comes to mind. Give them the word of God. That is the only authority they must submit to.
A much better book on tackling racism is Ken Ham's work "One Blood." He grounds his solution to racism in a more biblical context.
A Worlderful Story of Faith and Courage.......1999-08-04
I call you friend challanged me to think more deeply about how we treat others. The stroies gave me insite into some of the subtilies of discrimination which hurt others.
Blazing a trail for racial reconciliation through story........1999-03-28
Elvon Reed-Borst, one of the women telling her story in this book, wrote the following in a journal she kept as a young girl. It sums up what I feel this book conveys. She wrote, "Some people go down a worn path; I will go where there is no path and I will leave a trail." Echoes of Robert Frost. Elvon, Pamela Toussaint, Jo Kadlecek and Andrea Clark have chosen the "road less travelled on..." Without melodrama, overly subjective confession or sentimentalism, each women opens a dialogue with the reader regarding issues such as: racial reconciliation, growing up in Urban America, Suburban America, the South and the North and the community of faith. The book is so engaging because of the way it is set-up. It is split into three stages of their lives, called: Coming Up, Coming of Age and Coming Together. This structure allows the reader to view each woman's story as if viewing a play in which the stage is sectioned off in fours. Each voice is distinct and individual yet their stories overlap as we watch them meet each other in various ways. Not unlike the four gospel writers (if I may be so bold in such comparison)they describe the same events from their individual viewpoints and in the process we get to know them, Christianity and the racial issue in a more intimate and well-rounded manner. We see the issues raised through female dialogue and three-dimensional story . We also understand what Christ meant when he said, "I call you friend..." because the lives of these women, their mutual admiration, honesty, passion and faith reaffirms for anyone who has ears to hear that laying down one's life in whatever form that works out to be, is simply the natural state of what true Christianity is all about. This is a must read for anyone, no matter where you stand in regard to Christianity, but more so because it re-challenges us all on the issue of racial reconciliation. What are you and I doing about it in our friendships? This book is a map showing us to the trail which Elvon, Pam, Jo and Andrea have and continue to blaze for us to follow.
by Kristy Johnson
These stores will open your eyes.......1999-02-24
The authors are to be congratulated for being so transparent--this is the hardest topic to be honest about and their honesty really opened my heart and my mind on the issue of race. Read this book and weep and gasp and be changed.
Books:
- Now Face to Face
- On the Way Home: The Diary of a Trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894
- Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present
- Out of the Ballpark
- PLAYING WITH THE ENEMY: A Baseball Prodigy, a World at War, and a Field of Broken Dreams
- Reflections On A Mountain Lake: Teachings on Practical Buddhism
- Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President
- Sammy Sosa: An Autobiography
- Saving Fish from Drowning: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
- Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945
Books Index
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