Average customer rating:
- Substance and Beauty, Too
- A meticulously researched historical novel
- Moving story of a mine strike's politics and dangers.
- Beware that movement that generates its own songs.
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Bread and Roses, Too
Katherine Paterson
Manufacturer: Clarion Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 1900s
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Paterson, Katherine
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ASIN: 0618654798 |
Book Description
Rosa's mother is singing again, for the first time since Papa died in an accident in the mills. But instead of filling their cramped tenement apartment with Italian lullabies, Mamma is out on the streets singing union songs, and Rosa is terrified that her mother and older sister, Anna, are endangering their lives by marching against the corrupt mill owners. After all, didn't Miss Finch tell the class that the strikers are nothing but rabble-rousers;an uneducated, violent mob? Suppose Mamma and Anna are jailed or, worse, killed? What will happen to Rosa and little Ricci? When Rosa is sent to Vermont with other children to live with strangers until the strike is over, she fears she will never see her family again. Then, on the train, a boy begs her to pretend that he is her brother. Alone and far from home, she agrees to protect him . . . even though she suspects that he is hiding some terrible secret. From a beloved, award-winning author, here is a moving story based on real events surrounding an infamous 1912 strike.
Customer Reviews:
Substance and Beauty, Too.......2007-03-23
This lovely story tells about two children caught up in the infamous Lawrence, MA, mill strike of 1912. Rosa Serutti is caught between the anti-union pronouncements of her teacher and the harsh reality of tenement life for her immigrant family. Jake Beale runs from his alcoholic father and finds friends among the Italian mill-workers. As the story progresses, Rosa and Jake are taken in by Mr. and Mrs. Gerbati in Barre, Vermont. Here they receive clothing and food and love from Mrs. Gerbati, but both Jake and Mr. Gerbati are troubled by something from the past. Through the beauty of roses blooming from granite, Jake finds a new life and Mr. Gerbati breaks out of his shell. The strike ends and Rosa returns to her Italian mamma, the woman who deserved not only bread for her family, but roses too.
This is historical fiction of the highest calibre, with authentic details, well-developed characters, and a touching ending. It is a story of substance and beauty, too.
A meticulously researched historical novel.......2007-02-09
Bread and Roses, Too is told from the alternating perspectives of two very different children. Jake Beale has faked his papers to work at the local mill, is largely illiterate, and spends most of his time running away from his abusive, drunken father. He respects no one, and sleeps literally in garbage heaps. Rosa Serutti is the daughter of Italian immigrants, and attends school, though her mother and older sister work in the mills. She's studious, prissy, and quiet, and worries a lot.
Though they have different backgrounds and experiences, both children find their lives turned upside down when the Lawrence mill-workers go on strike. To tell the truth, neither reacts well. Jake steals, lies, and fails to appreciate people's kindness to him. Rosa lectures her mother about the perils of striking, and slinks along on the fringes of the marches and demonstrations that arise, even as she is sometimes inspired by them. I didn't much like either child, early in the story. But things do get better. Eventually, Jake and Rosa's lives intertwine. Rosa is sent away to live in safety with a family in Vermont, and Jake escapes along with her, towing a dark secret.
All of the major events in the book are based on meticulously researched historical events (as detailed in a historical note at the end of the book). The Lawrence strikes are depicted as they happened, in terms of local and state responses, the presence of union organizers, and the humanitarian "vacations" provided for many of the mill-workers children. Barre, Vermont really did host several children from Lawrence during the strikes. A photo of the children inspired the author to look further into the story.
The historical detail does slow the book down a bit, especially in the early part, when Jake and Rosa are still in Lawrence. Because of this, I had a bit of trouble getting into this book. However, it won me over by the end, and had me in tears (in a good way). The two strongest aspects of the book, I think, are the depth of the immersion into the world of the immigrant mill-workers, and the complexity of the characterization.
Regarding the immersion, this is a book that will make readers feel lucky to have food, and warmth, and clean water, and not to have to worry about basic survival. Here's an example, when one of the Italian strikers buys lunch for Jake, giving him a platter of spaghetti:
"It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. The tomato sauce even sported a few bits of greasy sausage. Jake forgot the crowd around him, forgot the strike, forgot the menace that waited for him in the shack, and fell to, his nose almost in the steaming plate. He hadn't had a full platter of food to himself in his entire thirteen years of life."
None of the characters in this book are one-dimensional, with the exception of Jake's dad, who is largely off-screen. Rosa's teacher is not very nice to the children in her class, and she tries to coerce them to convince their parents not to strike. And yet... she travels though the violence-prone streets to ask why Rosa isn't coming to school anymore, and she ends up providing lunch every day for the kids who remain in her class. The man in Barre that Rosa and Jake are sent to stay with, Mr. Gerbati, starts out silent and grouchy, and especially resentful of Jake. But when Jake actually gives him reason to be disapproving, Mr. Gerbati displays unexpected kindness "like his flowers blooming from the cold gray granite." Rosa's mamma is uncouth and uneducated, and somewhat careless of her children, but she has a voice like an angel, and she wants better for her Rosa than she ever had. Isn't that the immigrant dream?
I think that the book is accurate in capturing Rosa's struggles as the "smart one" in an immigrant family. She wants to fit in with her family, but even though she's still a child, her education is taking her beyond them. She's the only one who reads and writes fluently in English. At one point she thinks:
"She would be an American, an educated, civilized, respected American, not a despised child of an immigrant race. When she grew up she'd change her name and marry a real American and have real American children. She wouldn't go out to work in a mill and leave them in the care of someone's old granny who couldn't even speak English. She'd stay home and cook American food and read them American books and ... But even as she thought these determined thoughts, somewhere in the back of her mind she could smell rigatoni smothered in tomato sauce with bits of sausage in it and could hear her mamma's beautiful voice singing Un Bel Di."
I think that there are plenty of immigrant kids today facing the same sort of conflict between the promise of being American and the pull of their own culture.
This is a book that I'll remember for a long time. There is so much unflinching detail: Jake sleeping in the garbage; the welts on Jake's back; the wide-eyed awe of the children when they visit the Gerbati's house for the first time; and the feeling that Rosa has of being part of something larger than herself, during the demonstrations. I think this is one of those books that gets better in your memory, the longer it stays with you. I hope that kids will be able to get past the "good for you" feeling of the early historical parts, because the story has a lot to offer.
This book review was originally published on my blog, Jen Robinson's Book Page, on February 8, 2007.
Moving story of a mine strike's politics and dangers........2006-12-10
Rosa's mother seems happy again after recording from the mining death of Rosa's father - but she's out in the streets singing union songs, and Rosa's frightened of the corrupt mill owners. When she's sent away to live with strangers in Vermont until the strike is over, she worries she'll never see her family again. Her adoption of a younger boy will help protect them both in this moving story of a mine strike's politics and dangers.
Beware that movement that generates its own songs........2006-09-25
Doggone it, Katherine Paterson, stop making me cry! Under normal circumstances the number of books that make me tear up is a slim number that could be counted on one hand. And most of those books, if I was going to be honest with you, were probably written by Katherine Paterson. Ms. Paterson is a bit of a wonder. Year after year, decade after decade, she churns out consistently well-written meaningful pieces of children's fiction. The last book of Ms. Paterson's that I read was her rather remarkable, "The Same Stuff As Stars". Now, however, she's decided to traipse back into the world of historical fiction, alongside all the other authors this year, and produce a bit of fascinating history that can show a situation clear distinctions between good and bad, and yet leave enough room for people with nebulous motives. If complex narratives is the name of the game, consider Paterson a player.
On the one hand there's Jake. On the other hand there's Rosa. Both children live in Lawrence, Massachusetts in less than stellar conditions. For Jake, life is especially rough. His father's a drunkard who steals his son's money all the time and beats him senseless. And though Jake can usually make a little money in the local mills, it's rarely enough to keep him fed and warm. Rosa, in contrast, is relatively lucky. She lives with her mama, elder sister, and little baby brother in one of the city's many tenements. But life at the mill has been getting worse and worse and when it looks as if the mill owners are going to cut the workers' pay yet again, that's the straw that breaks the camel's back. Now Rosa's mother is joining in with the 1912 strike alongside workers from a variety of different backgrounds. And that might not be so bad except that Rosa is firmly convinced that her mama is putting their entire way of life in jeopardy. Her worst fears are confirmed too when her mother puts her on a train to Barre, Vermont to wait out the strike with a kind family there. On the train Jake meets up with Rosa and though they are only barely acquainted, he convinces her to say that he's her brother so that he can get out of town fast. As it happens, Jake has a secret he's trying to escape while Rosa has a life she's trying to remember.
Though it's clear from the get go that the mill owners are bad and the mill workers are good, Paterson works tirelessly to muddle the issue through Rosa's eyes. As far the girl is concerned, joining in the strike is dangerous and common. And Jake's no better a person with his constant schemes on how to get ahead and lie his way out of most situations. When he finds himself with the striking workers the book reads that, "This was the excitement of being a thief in the middle of hundreds of thieves, all set to steal away the world of Billy Wood", who is the mill's owner. In fact, you could probably say that there are few main characters out there half as self-centered as Rosa and Jake. For a long time all they think about is themselves. It takes a long time for them to get on that train headed for Vermont (150 pages or so), though once they do they're taken far enough away from what they're used to to think about something other than me me me. Rosa's schoolteacher Miss Finch is another complicated character. Unlike the mill schoolteacher in "Counting On Grace", Miss Finch is completely on the side of the owners. She doesn't want Rosa to be taken out of school, but she also encourages the children vehemently to keep their parents from striking. Rosa is, of course, completely on her teacher's side, and it's interesting to watch as Paterson pulls the child reader's strings back and forth and back again. She never tells her audience what to think and she doesn't have to. This book is an excellent example of "show, don't tell".
For those amongst us who don't know their American history as they should, I think I might not be the only one who thought that the title, "Bread and Roses, Too", meant that this story was a sequel. I know, I know. I'm a Neanderthal. I accept that. Really, it wasn't until the story showed how Rosa participated in naming the Bread and Roses Strike personally that I knew where the title even came from. Ms. Paterson, who is always good with clarification, mentions in the book's Historical Note at the end that no one really knows who came up with that phrase. She just took the liberty of assigning the job to Rosa, and it works like a dream.
Part of the privilege that comes with being a writer is that if you would like to set a book partly in your own hometown, you have that right. Ms. Paterson sets part of this book in Barre, Vermont where she herself lives. The people of Barre have long been known for the role they played in hosting the children of the Lawrence strikers. Ms. Paterson used all kinds of Barre historians to aid her in the writing of this book, and the result is a story that certainly gives the city its due. The writing for its own part is, of course, pitch perfect at all times. And while the book's first sentence is nothing to crow about, its last one is amazing. You won't understand much of what it means without having read the book, but I'll write it here just so you can get a taste of what Paterson's about. "How strange, how wonderful it semed to be running, not away from petty crime or deadly fear, but toward a new life where bread was never wanting and roses grew in stone."
It's interesting to note that Paterson doesn't go into the details of what working in a mill would entail in this book. We see the result of horrid working conditions rather than the cause. Technically she already showed the cause in her book "Lyddie". And if you happen to be desperate to read about what it was like for mill children, definitely seek out Elizabeth Winthrop's remarkable, "Counting On Grace". If children reading this book can get past Rosa's self-centeredness (she doesn't ever seem to get behind the strike until it seems as if she's named it herself) and they don't get bogged down in the story's first half, they'll be rewarded with a remarkable addition to the Paterson oeuvre. Reading "Bread and Roses, Too", makes you feel, when you are done, as if you've become a better person for the reading. A lovely little novel.
Amazon.com
Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible introduced readers to a newly illuminating baking-book approach--a precisely detailed yet accessible recipe format emphasizing baking science. The Bread Bible follows the same plan, offering 150 recipes, arranged by type, for a great variety of baked goods--from muffins, popovers, and English muffins to sandwich loaves, focaccia, rolls, hearth breads, rye bread, challah, and more, with a particularly vivid (and passionate) stop at sourdough loaves. Instruction is abetted by 32 pages of photos plus 300 step-by-step illustrations that depict, for example, bagel forming, in exact, imitable detail. In addition, an introductory section, "The Ten Essential Steps of Making Bread," includes a particularly lucid discussion on the way yeast works plus an invaluable comparison of kneading methods. Like the book's final look at ingredients, these "mini-texts" provide information uncommon to most home bread books, rendered in simple language that allays fears of putting one's hand in the dough.
All this is impressive indeed, and readers bitten by the bread-baking bug will welcome the ultra-thorough Beranbaum approach. The less committed may find her technical demands too painstaking (her baguette recipe requires two starters, for example; though simpler loaves are, of course, offered) or even impractical (ingredient quantities using grams are sometimes given in minute fractions, requiring a special scale). The frequent inclusion of alternate mixing methods and equipment options can also make the formulas unwieldy. On the other hand, features like Pointers for Success and Understanding often yield exciting discovery as well as rewarding results. In short, this Beranbaum bible answers virtually every bread-making question, as well as providing exemplary formulas. It's the real deal for those willing to bake along with Rose. --Arthur Boehm
Book Description
The new baking masterwork from the author of The Cake Bible and The Pie and Pastry Bible.
The Bread Bible gives bread bakers 150 of the meticulous, foolproof recipes that are Rose Levy Beranbaum's trademark. Her knowledge of the chemistry of baking, the accessibility of her recipes, and the incomparable taste of her creations make this book invaluable for home cooks and professional bakers alike.
Recipes include bread made with yeast starters, quick breads, flatbreads, brioche, and much more. From ciabatta, semolina, rye, and sourdough breads to bagels, biscuits, crumpets, and pizza dough, The Bread Bible covers all the baking bases.
"Understanding" and "Pointers for Success" sections explain in simple, readable language the importance of various techniques and ingredients demonstrated in a recipe, providing a complete education in the art of baking, with thorough sections on types of flour, equipment, and other essentials. Easy-to-use ingredient tables provide both volume and weight, for surefire recipes that work perfectly every time. 225 line drawings and 32 pages of color illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
The BEST book on bread!.......2007-09-12
Rose Levy Beranbaum has done a magnificent job with this book. Her instructions for each loaf are perfectly detailed, and I've yet to have one of her recipes fail. Some here have faulted her recipes for being repetitive in their details. However, I see this as a positive. I would rather not have to flip to five different parts of a book in order to make a loaf of bread. Provided that repeating a part of the instructions doesn't take up large amounts of space, it's worthwhile. I also really appreciate the introductory descriptions and stories she writes for the various breads. They really get you excited about making the various loaves of bread. You have to try making the pita bread, as watching them puff up in your oven is amazing. Her pizza crust is also the best I've made. Oh, and if you try the rosemary foccaccia, be patient, and magic will happen! At just over 20 minutes in the mixer, a wonderful dough ball will form. I suggest you watch the process, as you can see the gluten forming before your eyes. I can't recommend this book highly enough, and if you've ever got questions, check out her blog, Real Baking with Rose, where she answers reader questions all the time!
My husband cooks from this book..........2007-08-31
...and although he's an accomplished cook already, the recipes are easy to follow, with perfect results.
The Best.......2007-08-14
If you want to learn how to bake bread, you must get this cookbook. Some other reviewers have complained that the book is too long, the recipes too complicated, or the author is too scientific. I disagree. To me, having this cookbook is like having a brilliant teacher in your kitchen--one who explains what you are doing, offers encouragement, and tells you why things might have gone wrong. In a yearlong project, I baked every loaf of bread in The Bread Bible, and the quality of what I--a novice bread baker--was able to turn out was extremely gratifying to me. I had only one mishap (the rosemary focaccia, the bread I started with and one of the more difficult ones in the book), but when I made it a second time, carefully following every instruction, it was wonderful. If your method of cooking is to add a little of this and a little of that and see what happens, this is probably not the book for you. But if you want to bake perfect bread, guided by one of the best bakers on the planet, buy this book.
The last word in bread making..........2007-07-16
I just adore Rose Levy Bearnbaum's style of writing cookbooks. While, it is certainly not for the occasional baker, enthusiasts will hang on ever word. My first Rose book purchase was the Cake Bible about 12 years ago. The Cake Bible is still my go-to for cakes and now the Bread Bible is the same for my bread baking endeavors.
Rose is a passionate baker and it shows in her books.
Excellent Book.......2007-06-09
I really enjoy this book. It has everything from everyday recipes to special occasion breads and everthing in between. It has great illustrations and the recipes cover all skill levels.
Book Description
Told here for the first time, the riveting story of the most remarkable strike in American history
On January 12, 1912, an army of textile workers stormed out of the mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts, commencing what has since become known as the “Bread and Roses” strike. Based on newspaper accounts, magazine reportage, and oral histories, Watson reconstructs a Dickensian drama involving thousands of parading strikers from fifty-one nations, unforgettable acts of cruelty, and even a protracted murder trial that tested the boundaries of free speech. A rousing look at a seminal and overlooked chapter of the past, Bread and Roses is indispensable reading.
Customer Reviews:
the hobo philosopher.......2007-08-22
I was raised in Lawrence. My grandmother was a polish immigrant weaver at the Wood Mill and my grandfather was an Irish plant foreman at the Arlington Mills as was my father. I have been reading and researching Lawrence for some time. In fact in my book about growing up in Lawrence "A Summer with Charlie" now listed on Amazon, I include a short synopsis of the Strike of 1912. When I saw Mr. Watson's book advertised, I had to have it. He did an excellent job as did Mr. Moran on "The Belles of New England". If you really want some fun books about Lawrence get Images of America, Lawrence Massachusetts by Ken Skulski and friends. These are two volumes full of old pictures and descriptions of good old Lawrence. Whenever I get nostalgic and lonely for the old days and the good times I go over and start browsing through one of these volumes.
Bruce Watson's book is much the same - I loved walking with the strikers up and down all those familiar streets and learning about the history of my old hometown. This book should be a required reading at Lawrence High and Central Catholic, that's for sure.
History Lesson.......2006-08-16
I grew up in Lawrence and had several members of my family work in the woolen mills....
Although the strike was not talked about, I was very aware of how hard the work was and how much sacrifice was made by each family.
Sadly, the history of the strike was not taught in our classrooms - I strongly believe that it is as relevant today..... I urge everyone to read this book and to take it to your heart. Bruce Watson did an extraordinary job presenting this story.
I always was and always will be proud to be a member of one of those hardworking immigrant families.....and continue to be proud to have been raised in Lawrence.
Where's the movie? .......2006-06-07
This is a surprisingly exciting read. A 10 star book, at least. I can't imagine this history being told better although I don't know what others have written about this strike, other than a brief reference from the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World). Watson captures the importance of the IWW to this strike but also shows the great problems that the IWW had in holding on to the strikers after the strike ended.
So much detail but it flows so well. Watson seems to largely let the details tell the story rather than editorialize. This is history with the emphasis on history and not salesmanship. This is effectively a "you are there" episode accomplished in text.
What motivated Bruce Watson to do such exceptional work? I suspect that, unlike the author of "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, And Got a Life", Bruce Watson did not get anything like a $500,000 advance for "Bread and Roses". We need more people like Bruce Watson. And more money directed to support them: so buy this book!
So much about U.S. History I'm ignorant of. That a Kansas Socialist newspaper was our most popular weekly. That the IWW, afer having so much success in Lawrence, would be nearly crushed by the federal government. That one young man of the IWW, Joseph Ettor, would have such a profound influence of the Lawrence strike but die largely forgotten. That so many women would play important roles in a strike at this time. That within a year of the 1912 strike, the Lawrence strikers would be in denial as the IWW membership in their city plummeted: but there was a lasting impact on the strike on wages and working conditions in other cities, afraid of what the IWW and people of Lawrence had done.
The strike went from just Jan 12, 1912 to March 14 of the same year. But so much happened that it is amazing Watson was able to present it all clearly.
Imagine that after holding to such a hard position in 1912, the mill owner William Wood, would, about seven years later give his employees insurance, maternity benefits, sick pay, help them buy homes, provide English lessons. Yet die by suicide within another decade after losing his children.
These are powerful facts powerfully presented. At a time when globalism is weakening labor in the U.S. and everywhere else in the world, it seems worthwhile to learn what people did. And don't forget what Bruce Watson has done, by bringing that event to life again.
A Moving Story, Wonderfully Documented .......2006-03-21
What can I add to the laudatory reviews that have already appreared about this excellent work? Bruce Watson has done a masterful job of presenting this important (though often forgotten) episode in American history in a moving and engaging manner. This book should be welcomed by serious scholars and casual readers alike. Watson's style is intelligent and straightforward, but he is also a seasoned storyteller, who is able to open our eyes to the unmistakble human story behind these historical events. We never lose sight of the human faces on both sides of the strike lines here, for better or for worse. Watson's sympathies are obviously with the destitute and downtrodden workers of Lawrence. But his tone is never shrill or partisan, and his documentation is first rate-- thorough and meticulous almost to a fault (Do we really need ALL of these footnotes? Probably so.) We too often forget at what a high price our "American dream" was purchased. How much less prosperous and comfortable our lives would be had earlier generations not dared to stand up to the powers that be. Watson does a wonderful job of reminding us of the price that those who came before us have paid-- and of our need to continue their battle for justice in our own time.
A striking piece of labor history!.......2006-02-13
Having grown up in Lawrence, I enjoyed reading this account of the strike and the bravery of the strikers. Mr. Watson does an admirable job in presenting the evidence and I highly recommend this book.
However, I would like to caution reviewers such as J. Windsor of Seattle, WA who claim that the Lawrence strike occurred during `free market' conditions. This is an erroneous statement; but the reviewer is not alone in thinking that the Robber Barron era was a period of free markets. U.S. style capitalism has little to do with free markets and everything with maintaining elite privilege.
The U.S. has had a regulated economy since at least Alexander Hamilton's time, who argued for a National Bank and a commitment to economic growth through protectionist tariffs, subsidies to industry, and other measures recommended in his Report on Manufactures to the U.S. Congress.
The so-called Robber Baron era was no different with capitalists receiving state interventions in various ways.
The symbiosis between the state and capital can be illustration by such pieces of federal legislation as the Copyright Act, the Indian Removal Act, the Pacific Railway Act, the McKinley tariff, and the Federal Reserve Act.
The lesson is not more state regulations to help workers. Rather, it is to do away with the state since capitalism would not function without it and vice versa.
Average customer rating:
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Favorite, breads from Rose Lane Farm
Ada Lou Roberts
Manufacturer: Hearthside Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
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General
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ASIN: B0007E59MS |
Product Description
This trilingual anthology focuses on Neapolitan poetry from 1600 to the present. The book contains bio-bibliographical information on each poet and the poems appear in Neapolitan, Italian and in English translation.
Book Description
First published between 1930 and 1956, the six novels written by Agatha Christie under the name Mary Westmacott, regarded by some as the writer's finest work, show a very different side of this writer's talent. What they share with her other fiction is Christie's gift for sharp observations about people, the ambitions that drive them, their relationships, and the conflicts that erupt between them. This omnibus edition brings together three of the Westmacott novels:* Absent in the Spring - stranded between trains, Joan Scudamore finds herself reflecting upon her life, her family, and finally coming to grips with the uncomfortable truths about her life * Giant's Bread - the story of Vernon Deyre, a composer and pianist whose obsession with art with the two very different women in his life * The Rose and the Yew Tree - Isabella Charteris must choose between the expectations of her class and the possibility of loveNow available again for the first time in over a decade, the Mary Westmacott novels will surprise new readers and delight longtime fans. AUTHORBIO: Agatha Christie is the author of six novels as Mary Westmacott as well as, under her own name, eighty crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and several other books. She is the creator of the two most enduring figures in crime literature - Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple - as well as the author of The Mousetrap, the longest running play in the history of modern theater.She died in 1976
Customer Reviews:
Too odd.......2003-05-09
I found this book very hard to read considering all I have read are Agathas suspense novels. I was rather dissapointing to see this type of writing style. Her suspense and romantic novels are both very well written out but to see this side of her kind of ruined the whole detective novels. I wouldn't recommend this to readers who like her original style...
Another perspective from Agatha Christie........2003-03-07
Fans of Agatha Christie's mystery novels will not be disappointed in these more standard novels, which she published under the name Mary Westmacott. "Absent in the Spring" is a magnificent novel, the story of a woman unexpectedly stranded in a desert outpost with no distractions, who is forced for the first time to see herself and others objectively. A simple concept, but difficult to write. Christie handles the matter superbly, and in her autobiography, lists this as one of her favorite novels. "Absent in the Spring" is even more interesting when you consider she wrote the book in 3 days during the London Blitz!
Most of the novels Christie wrote as Mary Westmacott are semi-autobiographical, or reveal conflicts or persons present in her own life. Christie fans will want to include this collection of novels for insight into the author's life, thought processes, and internal emotional struggles. The other novels in this collection, especially "Giant's Bread", are also excellent novels, but the collection would be worth reading just for "Absent in the Spring."
A Must for Christie Fans!.......2002-10-16
A great trio of novels. Giant's Bread is her masterpiece!
Agatha's Best Work!.......2002-10-08
These novels are wonderful! In my opinion, "Giant's Bread" is her masterpiece!
Amazon.com
Erica Jong burst onto the American literary and cultural scene with her audacious bestseller Fear of Flying and has been cast as a feminist spokesperson ever since--a curious conundrum for a bawdy, sometimes raging intellectual who failed so miserably to repudiate men that she married repeatedly and worried so much about growing older that she signed up for plastic surgery. Yet it's these very inconsistencies that have made her less didactic over time. The brief essays in What Do Women Want? veer from contemplation of the impossible tightrope of motherhood, the accursed nature of Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the unexpurgated Anaïs Nin to the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't life of literary women and the fatal charm of Italy. There's also a surprisingly sweet paean to that horny old goat, Henry Miller (the subject of Jong's biographical study The Devil at Large).
This is Jong at her best and worst, alternately flailing wildly and landing squarely on the mark. "It's hard to be a novelist in the age of soap opera," she observes, commenting on American President Clinton's sexual peccadilloes. "The slow accretion of 500 well-wrought words a day seems pointless beside the dizzying and breathless plot lines served up by the evening news." The delicious irony of the book's title is no accident; it's a question Sigmund Freud asked and never satisfactorily answered. Neither does Jong, but her cultural commentary has flashes of brilliance and the moxie necessary to cut to the head of the line. --Francesca Coltrera
Book Description
What do women want? is a book of inspiration, humor, and provocation--an intimate conversation between the reader and Erica Jong. In these personal statements Jong addresses many of the questions that concern women and men today: Are women better off today than they were twenty-five years ago? What was Princess Diana's importance to women? Has Hillary Clinton prepared us for a woman president? Why do powerful women evoke ambivalence? Why do mothers continue to be blamed for working outside the home? How does the mother-daughter dialectic influence cycles of feminism and backlash? What is the relationship of pornography to the creative spirit? Who is the perfect man? What constitutes sex appeal?
With her characteristic wit and her refreshing refusal to bow down before political correctness, Erica Jong tackles these and other issues. She also celebrates Nabokov's Lolita and relates it to the history of censorship; analyzes Anaïs Nin's importance to contemporary writers; captures the seductive charm of Italy, her second home; and honors the necessity for poetry in our lives. What Do Women Want? is at once an informal memoir and a book of inspiration for all women and the men in their lives.
What Do Women Want? is both funny and serious, full of Jong's delight in language and her passion for ideas. It grapples with the writers she loves and the hypocrisy she hates, and reveals her own original, quirky take on the world we live in.
Customer Reviews:
If you like Jong, you'll like this book.......1999-02-27
This book of essays does hold your attention. You may not like her point of view, but you'll have to give her credit for being honest about it. She covers it all in bits and pieces, the only clue to what they all have in commom is the title. Having sex is very important to her, and I found this theme tiring after a while. She does present herself as what I'd call a typical New Yorker. She seeks to impress the reader with her life, and it comes off sometimes as bragging. I'm a fan of Henry Miller so I enjoyed her first hand impression of him - they must have been soulmates, seeking sexual experiences where ever they could find them. I can see why given her point of view she feared fifty as it gets harder to attract strangers - so I may read more of her yet. If you're a writer you'll probably be interested in her struggles as an author and mother.
Entertaining and likeable.......1998-10-12
This book is more entertaining and likeable than I expected. Jong's honesty is admirable. She readily admits she didn't become pregnant till she could afford a nanny; most celebrities pretend they raised their children with no help. I liked the essay Lolita at Thirty best and also her views on Jane Eyre are very acute. Her literary criticism is the best thing in the book. Surprisingly erudite and sharp. Her essay on Anais Nin made me want to read the journals which I never have. She's at her least appealing when trying to show how wordly she is , i.e. 'My Italy' where she does an awful lot of name dropping as if all the famous people she knows validate her own imporance. Her daughter, Molly, wrote an article for Mode magazine where she related how her mother's friend, Joan Collins, called her fat. I wouldn't be surprised if Erica didn't drop Joan, for all her cruelty, simply because she's a celeb.
Politically Correct Feminist Ramblings.......1998-09-30
It is very hard to follow Jung's logic. Her book jumps around like a bunge cord, never staying long enough to explain her unsupportable conclusions. Most distressing is her apologetic acceptance of the behavior of the President. In fairness, there are some amusing parts.
Book Description
"Blood, Bread, and Roses" reclaims women's myths and stories, chronicling the ways in which women's actions and the teaching of myth have interacted over the millenia. Grahn argues that culture has been a weaving between the genders, a sharing of wisdom derived from menstruation. Her rich interpretations of ancient menstrual rites give us a new and hopeful story of culture's beginnings based on the integration of body, mind, and spirit found in women's traditions. "Blood, Bread, and Roses" offers all of us a way back to understanding the true meaning of women's menstraul power.
Foreword by Charlene Spretnak
"[Grahn's] intriguing excursion through folklore, myth, religion, anthropology and history bespeaks a feminist conviction that male origin stories must be balanced by a recognition of women's central role in shaping civilization."
-Publishers Weekly
Customer Reviews:
Life-changing.......2005-12-30
Dr. Grahn's book was way ahead of its time. Both thought-provoking and transformational, she gives us nothing less than a new origin story in which women are at the center, without relegating men to the fringe. I highly recommend this book as well as the New College of California journal Metaformia: A Journal of Menstruation and Culture, www.metaformia.com. Page One describes how this theory returns women to a crucial place in cultural origin stories, in our histories, in our rituals, in our religions, and in the ordinary and extraordinary everyday things that billions of women do all over the planet-so women can again identify themselves as being part of culture creation in major, leading, and centralizing ways.
Fear of a Red Nation.......2002-08-30
The first time I picked up this book I got to the part about menstruation being the inspiration for chairs, and like another reviewer here, thought Grahn's ideas way out there and put the book aside. Fast forward five years and it makes a lot more sense to me. Grahn is a poet and relates a world before there was language, when what would become humans lived in trees and struggled day to day along side the other animals. Grahn posits that the correlation of the female menstrual cycle with the cycle of the moon served as the first physical distinction between animal and environment, and provided the metaphorical correlation necessary to all language. Lacan describes this as the mirror stage which happens in infancy. What Grahn describes is similar but takes place not with an individual but with an entire race, haltingly, and over a very long period of time.
None of us knows what happened in the dawning of human consciousness. Grahan weaves a credible account based on commonalities between ancient cultures, myths, and language. Still, her narrative departs so acutely from what we generally do, or or have not bothered to, imagine about our origins that it seems very easy to dismiss. Yet in a country where 45% of the people believe God created the world in seven days, made the first man out of dust, and the first woman out of one of his ribs, why is Grahn's version - based on the physically possible - so difficult to consider?
Much of what Grahn writes is speculation, a delving into the possible. The stories of women have been, throughout history, suppressed, stolen, and destroyed. We cannot totally recreate this lost history, but we can try on other ideas and take from them the value that they hold. For women to consider that their lives and their bodies were integral to the creation of human culture is no more absurd than the completely unsubstantiated idea (which 45% of Americans believe) that ONLY the lives and bodies of men were necessary to human culture - that a male god spoke the whole kit and caboodle into being in seven days, and women were just an afterthought.
So Judy, you go, girl. And please do write a book on menopause.
Misinformation and blatant lies.......2002-06-30
This book is filled with not only misinformation, but also blatant lies. The author claims the practice of wearing shoes came from traditions of women in certain areas of the world not touching the ground with their bare feet while menstruating; it didn't have ANYTHING to do with people wanting to protect their feet against rocks and cold according to the author. She makes similar claims about utensils coming into use because of taboos regarding menstruating women scratching themselves with their hands, again not having anything to do with not wanting to burn oneself on hot food or dishing it out.
The idiocy doesn't stop there! The author actually goes on to suggest a link between menstrual huts and the development of hats among our foremothers because of the similarity in the words! Did she really think that our ancient foremothers spoke English?
I would not suggest wasting money on this book. For a truthful book that affirms women and our monthly cycle without resorting to making up false information just to make us feel good, get Lara Owen's book _Honoring Menstruation_ instead.
I did love the history of the book!.......2002-05-08
But the thing I think it didn't contain as much of is relating to the title of the book. Don't get me wrong, I learned alot about being a weemon, but I still was looking for more of a book on the ways it creates the world, not random facts, etc. Or random coincidences.
wonderful.......2000-04-05
I highly recomend this book. It is a cultural history to beat all other cultural histories! Grahn has taken humanity back to the very earliest days and suggests that it was menstruation that caused us to develop into humans. I am hoping that Grahn will "complete the cycle" by writing about menopause, because it also had a profound effect on the development of humanity. No more cavemen stereotypes, please!
Average customer rating:
- New York Times Book Review
|
Bread and Roses: The Struggle of American Labor, 1865-1915
Milton Meltzer
Manufacturer: Replica Books
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Binding: Hardcover
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Customer Reviews:
New York Times Book Review.......2005-04-17
(Click the author's name for several other editions of this book or the two "Other Editions" for more copies of the book)
For Young Readers
By A.H. Raskin
New York Times Book Review
January 28, 1968
The concern of this compelling book is with the march of the nation's industrial workers out of conditions as destructive of health and self-respect as any that had prevailed on Southern plantations under slavery.
It is a one-dimensional story of battle by an infant labor movement against the forces of corporate greed in a period when all the institutions of government and polite society were on the side of the employer. The very fact that the book is episodic and often overdrawn adds to its usefulness in supplying a new generation of readers with some illumination things unions do now that they when large membership, huge treasuries and economic power sufficient to paralyze entire communities...
Mr. Meltzer's pages, prickly with eyewitness accounts of unionism's birth pains in the sweatshops, the factories, the railroads and the mines, are a goad to revitalized activity in defense of industrial democracy and higher economic standards for those who remain on the outskirts of American affluence.
Listen to this 1880 report by a textile mill superintended on how his mill insured labor peace when new technology enabled it to switch fro a process known as mule spinning to an alternate technique called ring-spinning.
"The mule-spinners area tough crowd to deal with. A few years ago they were giving trouble at this mill, so one Saturday afternoon, after they had gone home, we started right in and smashed up a roomful of mules with sledgehammers. When the men came back on Monday morning, they were astonished to find that there was no work for them. That room is now full of ring framers run by girls."
Often it was not the machinery but the workers who were smashed. Federal troops, the state militia, the police and hired thugs were at the call of the bosses when a strike got too big or too stubborn. Mr. Meltzer includes generous excerpts from John Reed's classic description of the 1914 massacre of strikers and their wives and children at the Rockefeller-owned coal mines at Ludlow, Colorado. No less heart-rending is Ray Stannard Baker's report on the great 1912 uprising of the textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, under the slogan that gave the book its title, "We want bread and roses too."
All the bloody way stations on the road to labor's present strength are points of call for Mr. Meltzer. There are Homestead and Pullman and Haymarket Square, where a bomb explosion in 1886 killed seven Chicago policeman and labor's immediate hopes for an eight-hour day. Four anarchist leaders were hanged for the bombing, though there was no credible evidence of guilt.
Prophetically, one of the convicted men said on the scaffold after the hood had been fastened over his head: "There will come a time when out silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today." And so it proved when the new Governor of Illinois, John Peter Altgeld, pardoned three others on their way to the gallows, insisting that they had been framed and that the real offenses against justice had been committed by the men of property and the enforcers of law and order.
Many will feel, with considerable validity, that Mr. Meltzer's book is oversimplified history-that none of the epic labor struggles he recounts could possibly have involved such a monopoly of guilt as emerges from page after page of worker's laments about the villainy of their employers. Still others may argue that, in any event, such as unrelieved picture of industrial oppression has scant relevance to this day when labor is often the aggressor and shows autocratic unconcern about the hardship its abuses of power inflict on the public.
But those who put forth such demurrers will find it hard to explain why other pillars of the community, through all the period of which Mr. Meltzer writes, were invariably certain that labor was ruining the country by its arbitrariness and its contempt for lawful process. N o present executive of a giant corporation looks back with pride on what happened at Homestead or Ludlow; the fashion now is shamefaced dismissal of such episodes as skeletons to be buried with the vanished "robber baron" phase of capitalist expansion.
Yet, while the battles were going most of the other civilized voices were almost as one in deploring the "anarchy" of the strikers and warning that no society could survive such lawlessness, "The mob is a wild beast and needs to be shot down," said The New York Herald of the vanquished railroad strikers in 1877. And a similar expression of contemporary civic outrage attended almost every other contest in the Meltzer chronicle...
Mr. Meltzer's book will not tell young people all they need to know about labor. But it will give them a better understanding of the reasons for labor's undiminished belief that its unity is its only dependable source of strength, the rock on which rests both its material success and its capacity for survival.
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