March 7, 2013

Hello 

Each month we give away books to members to read and review (or discuss). Members who choose to take part tend to receive a free book about every three months. Here are their opinions on two recently published books:


With or Without You: A Memoir by Domenica Ruta Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Publication Date: 02/26/2013
Memoir, 224 pages

Number of reader reviews: 37
Readers' consensus:

BookBrowse Members Say:
"The Glass Castle meets A Million Little Pieces. Raw, heartbreaking, with touches of dry humor to give you, the reader, hope...this book will eat at your heart strings. It is a memoir about an abusive mother/daughter relationship with strong, bold characters who hit rock bottom more than once. It will definitely appeal to adults both young and old, and book clubs will devour it. There are so many possibilities for discussion that can reach us all as vulnerable humans." - Book-Lover (Dover, NH)

   

"Loved this book! The writing is wonderful and the story is harrowing, funny, and inspirational. I've reviewed quite a few books for First Impressions, and I've never given 5 stars until now. Don't miss this book." - Sylvia G. (Scottsdale, AZ)

 

"I loved this story and look forward to reading more by this entertaining new author." - Barbara O. (Maryland Heights, MO).
 
"Without a doubt, Domenica Ruta can write. She's a wordsmith with a compelling story to tell. In a poignant, horrifying, and sometimes humorous memoir we get a glimpse of her chaotic, confusing and depressing life with a very mentally ill mother. Domenica's obviously strong inner resources prevail as she pulls herself out of that world of drugs and craziness. I found myself cheering her on and thinking that I'll be sure to read the next book she writes. She's that good." - Rosemary C. (Austin, TX).

These are 4 of the 34 reader reviews for this book.
Read all the Reviews

Buy at Amazon

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World

by Matthew Goodman

Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: 02/26/2013
Travel & Adventure, 480 pages


Number of reader reviews: 21
Readers' consensus:

BookBrowse Members Say:
"Reads like fiction only it's not! Part history lesson, part travelog, part adventure story and totally engrossing. Eighty Days is immensely informative and a pleasure to read. This would make a good choice for a book club discussion." - Laurette A. (Rome, New York).

"Matthew Goodman's writing is magic! He transforms historic documents into a fast-paced fascinating story that introduces the reader to Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland during the colorful era of the late 1880s. Both are single women taking on the challenges of New York City. Each is a talented writer and well qualified as a professional journalist. Newsrooms, however, are a male domain, and editors are proud of that. How these women overcome this obstacle unveils their creativity, tenacity, and talent. Nellie Bly is Yankee ready to make a difference in the world and Elizabeth Bisland is confident in her Southern style." - Sarah R. (Chattanooga, Tennessee).

"I knew after reading the first page that this book was a keeper. And I was right. Not only is the story fascinating, but the historical facts contained within make one aware of how fortunate we are to be able to travel as we do today." - Marylou C. (Winfield, IL).

"It's a Book Club natural! Who won? Really?..... Read the book!" - Sharon P. (Jacksonville, FL).

These are 4 of the 21 reviews for this book.
Read all the Reviews

Buy at Amazon

Below is part of BookBrowse's review of The Still Point of the Turning World. Read the review in full here

Hardcover (Mar 2013), 272 pages.

Publisher: Penguin Press
ISBN 9781594205125

BookBrowse Rating:
Critics' Consensus:

For the last several years, one of my favorite bands has been Cloud Cult. Their upbeat lyrics and peppy melodies belie a darker past, one characterized by the sudden death of the lead singer's very young son. Since that time, much of what Cloud Cult has sung about is this loss and what comes after. As I read Emily Rapp's shattering new memoir, The Still Point of the Turning World, I was reminded of Cloud Cult, and marveled again at the desire of so many artists - bordering on compulsion - to record this experience of grief and loss, not to capitalize on it but rather because they have no choice.

When Rapp's son Ronan began missing his developmental milestones shortly after his six-month birthday, Rapp and her husband took him to an ophthalmologist who confirmed their worst fears - Ronan had Tay-Sachs disease, a genetic enzyme deficiency with no known cure and the prognosis of rapid neurological decline and certain death within months or very few years. Following the expected - and completely justified - raging and weeping in the wake of this catastrophic diagnosis, Rapp focused on two things: mothering her son as best she could in the time they had left together, and drawing on her considerable knowledge of philosophy, religious traditions, and literature in an attempt to make sense of the unfathomable.

Recalling what it felt like to contemplate writing in those first days and weeks following her young son's diagnosis, Rapp says, "I am a writer. I write. And just as I had written through every experience, euphoric or horrific, throughout my life, I began to document the daily happenings of my son's short life. Once I started I didn't - I couldn't - stop." Rapp examines her son's all-too-brief life - and her own reactions to it - fearlessly and with an honesty that will devastate and astonish not only other parents, but everyone who opens this remarkable book.

As Rapp begins to connect online and in person with the small handful of other parents coping with imminent or recent losses due to Tay-Sachs and related diseases, she dubs them "dragon parents," parents who are doing their jobs without models and without nets. Gone are Rapp's hopes and expectations that her son will attend a prestigious college or master a musical instrument or even learn to walk. Instead, she is left with the unexpected duty and, at times, surprising delight of just being with her son, of imagining his life not as a progression toward some imaginable future but as a series of infinitely small present moments, unrelated to what has come before and after. "That was my role as a dragon mother," she writes," to protect my child from wickedness and as much suffering as possible and then, finally, to do the hardest thing of all, a thing most parents will thankfully never have to do: let him go." continued

Above is part of BookBrowse's review of The Still Point of the Turning World. Read the review in full here

Reviewed by Norah Piehl

Glorious Failures
Tanis Rideout's Above All Things is part of an important tradition in human history and literature. The deaths of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine continue the fascination we have with glorious failures and heroic misadventures.

The Iliad, one of the first works of Western Literature, celebrates the death of Hector, a man of integrity and clearly superior to those who defeat him and his people. Hector shows a mercy and compassion lacking in the Greek leaders, Agamemnon and Menelaus, and even in the tortured hero who kills him, Achilles. In their last meeting in book 6 of The Iliad, Hector and his wife Andromache, both realizing in their deepest hearts that Hector will die in the coming battle, speak of the tragedy that awaits her, their son Astyanax, and all of the city they love, but Hector says, "All this weighs on my mind, dear woman...but I would die of shame if I would shrink from battle now." He then describes the future of the city itself, "...the day will come when sacred Troy must die, Priam must die and his people with him...Even so [nothing] weighs me down...besides your agony." Like George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, his final thought is the wife and family he leaves behind.

In 1909 American Robert Perry was the first to reach the North Pole; Perry survived and returned to his wife, Josephine, and to their children. In 1911, the race for the South Pole became intense with both British Naval officer Robert Falcon Scott and Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen preparing parties to attempt the feat. Robert Scott left behind his wife, sculptress Kathleen Scott, and their child to reach what was then "the other pole."

Facing blizzards and temperatures that reached minus 23 degrees, Scott's progress was slow, and, when they reached the pole on January 16, 1912, his party found Amundsen's Norwegian flag and a note indicating they had been there on December 14, 1911. Scott's disappointment was deep and bitter, as he noted in his diary, "The worst has happened...All the day dreams must go...Great God! This is an awful place." The return journey was gloomy, monotonous, and tiring; the team fought their own depression along with worsening weather conditions, frostbite, and a lack of food. At some point toward the end, Scott knew his group would not survive. He wrote in his diary, "I do not regret this journey; we took risks, we knew we took them, things have come out against us, therefore we have no cause for complaint." On March 28, he wrote his final entry, ""We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write anymore - Last entry. For God's sake look after our People." As with Hector and George Mallory, Scott's last thought was for those he left behind.

Amelia Earhart, in the company of pilot Wilmer Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis Gordon, became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. In 1932, she was the first woman to fly solo across the same ocean. She proved that women were at least men's equals in "jobs requiring intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness and willpower." She continued to fly and to set records. In 1937, she set off on the journey to become the first woman to fly around the world. She left behind her husband, publisher George Putnam, and, despite the crash of her Electra on the first try, she was determined to make the flight. She was nearing 40 and said in an interview, "I have a feeling that there is just about one more good flight left in my system, and I hope this trip is it."

By June 29, Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan, had reached New Guinea having covered all but 7000 miles of the 29,000-mile trip. They now prepared for the most dangerous jump of the journey, to Howland Island in the mid-Pacific, more that 2500 miles away and only 1 � miles long and � mile wide; Amelia had all unnecessary things removed from the plane to make room for an extra fuel tank since the distance was beyond the Electra's standard limit. She and Fred Noonan took off on July 2 and, contrary to weather reports, they encountered clouds and storms. At 7:45 the next morning, a coast guard cutter tracking her near Howland picked up a message, "We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet." At 8:45 she reported running north and south - and then there was silence. Amelia was never heard from again, and her plane's remains have never been found. Like others before her, she reached higher than anyone thought possible, and failed - but in that failure, she again proved that humanity moves ahead only when it risks all pursuing an ideal or a goal.

Like Icarus, these three and George Mallory flew toward the sun and came so close that it destroyed them. There are others: we could explore the Titanic disaster, the destructions of the Columbia and Challenger shuttles, and the failed attempt to rescue the hostage Israeli wrestlers in Munich in 1972. But Hector, Scott, Earhart, and Mallory embody best the many women and men whose glorious failures still inspire us.

Above is part of BookBrowse's review of Above All Things. Read the review & backstory in full here, plus an excerpt

Reviewed by Bob Sauerbrey 

With so much focus on the Vatican at the moment, this seems a good time to take a spin through the world of Pope related books. But with so many to choose from, and of greatly varying quality, where to start? To help sift the wheat from the chaff, I turned to our Facebook friends (yes, I know technically they're fans but I prefer to think of them as friends), and posted the following question:

"I'm looking for books to recommend about the Papacy - both fiction and nonfiction. If you know of a "best in class" book about Popes past or present, or about the Vatican/Catholic Church in general, please do post. Thank you!"

Below are some of their recommendations:

 

The Pope Who Quit by Jon M Sweeney: A True Medieval Tale of Mystery, Death, and Salvation by Jon M. Sweeney (2012)

With seemingly prescient timing, Sweeney's biography tells the life story, as far as is known, of Pope Celestine V who reigned for six months in 1294 and was the only Pope to abdicate the papacy until Pope Benedict. The future Pope Celestine was born Pietro of Morrone, a hermit who founded the monastic order of the Hermits of St Damiano, later known as the Celestines. Apparently, he made the tactical error of sending a letter of

Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy by John Julius Norwich (2011)

British historian Norwich has written and presented about 30 TV documentaries and is the author of a number of history books covering a diverse range of topics from Byzantium to Norman Sicily. In 2011 he published Absolute Monarchs which, in the introduction, he describes as "a straightforward single-volume history" of the world's "most astonishing social, political, and spiritual institution ever created." According to the reviewer for the LA Times, Norwich lives up to his claim with a history book that is mostly free of opinion and commentary written in an "unstuffy and sometimes witty writing style".
Read an excerpt on the publisher's website


 

Pope Benedict XVI - Servant of the Truth by Peter Seewald (2006)

The book jacket blurb for this "lavishly illustrated" coffee-table book asks: Do you know the real Pope Benedict? Journalist Peter Seewald does. After writing an unfair attack on Cardinal Ratzinger, he was urged by Catholic readers to meet with the man he was maligning. He did so - and the result was two book-length interviews, Salt of the Earth and God and the World. Seewald also returned to his Catholic faith, saying that Ratzinger was the one who "taught me what it meant to swim against the stream." This book, written mainly by Seewald, describes the paths of Joseph Ratzinger's life from his birthplace in Bavaria all the way to being the first German Pope in 482 years."
Look inside the book at Amazon

Those who enjoy this book might be interested in the two books that the former Cardinal Ratzinger wrote while Pope:

Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes by Eamon Duffy
(first published in 1997, 3rd edition published 2006)

An all encompassing history of the papacy from its beginnings nearly 2000 years ago. The third edition includes an extended final chapter covering the last years of Pope John Paul II and the election of Benedict XVI. Although created as a tie-in to a six-part British television series on the history of the papacy, Kirkus Reviews opines that the "history is surprisingly dense and sophisticated." While Duffy certainly doesn't steer clear of the salacious aspects of the papacy over the centuries, he uses the evolving institution of the papacy to view two millennia of Western civilization.
View a large, albeit poorly scanned, sample at Google Books


 

Papal Sin by Garry Wills (2000)

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Garry Wills offers a stinging critique of the Catholic Church and its hierarchy from the nineteenth century to five years before the death of John Paul II. Wills, a lifetime Catholic, is proficient in Greek and Latin, has degrees in Philosophy and a PhD in Classics and has been on the faculty of Northwestern University since 1980, where he is currently an Emeritus Professor of History. As Publishers Weekly says, "though his rhetoric is at times a bit sharp, and his historical formulae a bit too sweeping, Wills's passion is excusable since this is a philippic directed at the Church by one its own."
Read an excerpt at BookBrowse


 

The Keys of This Blood: Pope John Paul II Versus Russia and the West for Control of the New World Order by Malachi Martin (1990)

Malachai Martin (1921-1999) was an Irish Catholic priest. Originally ordained as a Jesuit priest, he became Professor of Palaeontology at the Vatican's Pontifical Biblical Institute, and from 1958 also served as a theological adviser to Cardinal Augustin Bea during preparations for the Second Vatican Council. Disillusioned by reforms he renounced his vows in 1964 and moved to New York. He wrote 17 books, both fiction and nonfiction, that were frequently critical of the Catholic Church. The Keys of This Blood written just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, argues that Pope John Paul II was a geopolitican playing a "millennium end-game" against Mikhail Gorbachev and international business leaders, with the aim of establishing a new world order. As we're now more than a decade into the new millenium, this book is arguably a little dated, but a number of recent reviews on GoodReads indicate that it's still being read and recommended.
Look inside the book at Amazon


 

Pontiff by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts (1983)

No roundup of Papal books would be complete without Pontiff, co-authored by my father-in-law, Max Morgan-Witts. Published in 1983 after over two years of extensive research, the book focuses on the period from 1978 (the year which saw the death of Pope Paul VI, the election and death 33 days later of John Paul 1, and the election of John Paul II) through to the assassination attempt of 1981, in which John Paul II survived four bullet wounds. A blockbuster in the mid-1980s in a number of countries including the USA, Pontiff was the book that opened my eyes to the joys of nonfiction at the formative age of 20, when I realized that narrative nonfiction did not equate with dry and dull but, in fact, offered the best of both worlds, a form that could have the page-turning appeal of a novel combined with the relevance of fact. Thanks Max!
View a sample at Google Books