Ours Blog will cover with Biographies Memoirs Books Reviews. All of book are share here is about Biographies and Memoirs of someone. I hope you will enjoy what I share to you.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks >> Fascinating Story Wow This book tells the true story of Henrietta Lacks and her family s attempts at understanding how her cells have impacted science It is part medical research history part human interest and part science lesson Civil rights and patient s medical rights are also woven in throughout the book I w
Three Cups of Tea With Headphones Playaway Adult Nonfiction
Three Cups of Tea With Headphones Playaway Adult Nonfiction >> A Treasure There are few books in life that a person would forever keep at his side and of those select few I treasure this one most I find solace in the pages of this book especially in my most trying times and this is because those precious words contained within them remind me that difficulty is always
Liar s Poker >> Terrific portrait of 1980s Wall Street before the MBAs arrived If you want to know what the big Wall Street bond firms were like before the MBAs took over this is the book It s a great portrait of 1980s Wall Street the way that traders and investment bankers used to appear in the eyes of the young MBAs they hired and the ridiculous training that newcomer
Courage and Consequence My Life as a Conservative in the Fight
Courage and Consequence My Life as a Conservative in the Fight >> Setting Bush s record straight A well written clarification of the President s accomplishments and yes some significant mistakes A book like this from an insider who was so close to the facts is much needed to counter the reporting by a media that on the whole tended to be politically biased against President Bush
Author : Tori Spelling Total Page : 288 Publisher : Gallery Publication Date : 2009 02 24
sTORI Telling >> I Heart Tori Spelling I never really gave Tori Spelling much thought basically assumed she was another pampered spoiled Hollywood socialite who I would prefer not wasting a single moment of my life on I was wrong Tori is witty likeable honest kind and is actually a very descent writer Now don t expect much this book is basically very entertaining story telling but she does it really well I read this book in five hours on a flight and could not put it down even long enough to eat my stale airline lunch That is saying a lot because I tend not to skip very many meals
Myself being a 20 something middle class mom from Oregon I would have never thought I could relate to Tori Spelling but I can I highly recommend this book for an easy breazy light and funny read >> Great humorous and heartfelt read Tori Spelling has such a great writing style Her books have become a staple in my reading routine She makes no excuses for her past and is uplifting for the future all while not losing her sense of humor Great book to read >> So happy for Tori Tori is a wonderful writer so easy to read and interesting to learn about It s so nice to see a celebrity be honest about her life good and bad but isn t gross about it I hope that she keeps up her show and keeps writing
Author : Brother Lawrence Total Page : 158 Publisher : Paraclete Press Publication Date : 1995 04 19
The Practice of the Presence of God Christian Classic >> second time I purchased I love this book the simple spirituality of Brother Lawrence and his faith When I moved to Hawaii a few years ago my copy of this book didn t make it into the moving boxes I am happy to once again have it in hang >> The Practice of the Presence of God This is an excellent thought provoking book It is concise easy to read and its messages reach the heart Short chapters make it easy to cover a topic in one sitting >> Profound Reading the book is being in the presence of God Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence has literally changed my life Reviewing religious books is as subjective as it gets because whether or not a book has meaning depends 1 not only on where one is on one s spiritual journey but also on 2 one s religious views a volatile proposition
The book was written over three hundred years ago and has amazing relevance
For me reading this book actually gave me a feeling of God s presence Brother Lawrence proposes that experiencing God s presence is the purpose and end all of worship He is very self efacing and has an odd preference for suffering but there is nonetheless much wisdom in it It brings up the idea that one s relationship with God is the ultimate goal nothing else The idea that one can feel that presence in every waking moment Brother Lawrence clearly did The idea that one should pray for God s will instead of for the things one wants Clearly Brother Lawrence put God first in everything and in return he had a companion in life When things were not going well for Brother Lawrence he gave thanks to God for the lesson he was being taught It is far different than the modern way of looking at things and adds a new dimension to one s spirituality Reading the book I felt as if I was with Brother Lawrence transported back in time three hundred years
I am more of the mindset that everything should go my way and I should have everything I want and God is supposed to provide that for me so it was all food for thought Definitely not in the Think and Grow Rich or The Secret line of which there is plenty to be found in corporate materialistic America and which has something to contribute as well But there is something profound and unique in experiencing God s presence regardless of what is happening in one s life It is difficult to put into words read the book Anyone can take something away from it
As for the version I have the free internet version and nothing to compare it to Google Brother Lawrence Practicing the Presence of God and you ll find it
Author : T C Boyle Publisher : Blackstone Audio Inc Publication Date : 2009 02 10
The Women A Novel >> The Women Excellent book and the price was right Condition of this used book was like new >> Received in perfect condition Looking forward to reading this book Read Loving Frank and heard this book is equally well done >> The same thing over and over but backwards The Women by TC Boyle has an extremely interesting premise tell the story of the love lives of Frank Lloyd Wright through an uninterested third party The narrator brings nothing to the story and is beyond superfluous The narrator also makes use of a lot of footnotes that do nothing except break up the overall storytelling Relying heavily on footnotes is a very lazy way of writing The reader has to stop in the middle of sentences and look up the tiny print footnotes and it completely takes one out of the moment Not to mention that on several pages there were multiple footnotes annotated by strange symbols and I found myself getting lost on the page Too much work if you just want to enjoy the story Also the narrator who has little to do with the actual story must introduce each section by giving some asides to the reader which add nothing to the overall book Many many pages are wasted in this manner
My other complaint about the story is that every woman had a redundant story They each have their little quirks one left her children to be with the Master one was a crazy morphine junky and the other was a refugee from her home country However this is the only thing that separates each woman they all have the same issue with F L Wright he is pompous controlling demanding unreasonable but must be the greatest lover in the history of men in order to get these mostly smart women to endure anything for him And that their stories are told backwards that is to say that they start with the most recent wife and go backwards through time to the first pair of wives and the first one isn t really given any time at all But the women all have the same problems broken promises in debt because of Wright s madness allows him to owe thousands of dollars to the grocer or the laborers and then wonder why they can t just give him whatever he wants because he has graced the peons with the presence of genius All this book confirmed for me that Frank Lloyd Wright is an unreasonable unstable user So what if he is an artist He doesn t know how to treat people
Ultimately this is a modern historical novel and I didn t learn anything that I couldn t have looked up on Google about these women A big miss for me from TC Boyle that was lazily executed and redundant
Author : James L Swanson Total Page : 496 Publisher : Harper Perennial Publication Date : 2007 02 01
Manhunt The 12 Day Chase for Lincoln s Killer P S >> Manhunt
This is a vivid and clearly written narrative of Booth s conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln Vice President Johnson and Secretary of State Seward The book does not stray from this purpose remaining fixed on the story of how the assassinations were planned how they played out in success or failure of Lincoln s death of the escape pursuit evasion and capture of the conspirators of the rewards paid of the imprisonment and the hangings Excluded are the myriad extraneous historical and biographical details that could interrupt that telling As Swanson writes in his bibliographical notes Manhunt is meant to be not an encyclopedia of the assassination but a dramatic account of the events of April 14 through 26 that unfolds as much as possible in real time p 418
The author s Note to the Reader tells us
The story is true All the characters are real and were alive during the great manhunt of 1865 Their words are authentic Indeed all text appearing within quotation marks comes from original sources letters manuscripts affidavits trial manuscripts newspapers government reports pamphlets books memoirs and other documents What happened in Washington D C in the spring of 1865 and in the swamps and rivers and the forests and the fields of Maryland and Virginia during the next twelve days is far too incredible to have ever been made up
This is the first book I ve read on the topic I recommend it Its author recommends others On page 397 Swanson writing in 2005 says that The best modern book on the Lincoln assassination is Blood on the Moon The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Edward Steers Jr published in 2001
>> Fast paced read but were some disgusting details necessary I bought this book with the understanding it would be mostly about the actual chase of Booth and his accomplices I am a historian and know basically ALL the details of the assassination and was disappointed that so much of the beginning of the book was involved with those details I know why he included it trust me I am not saying that he shouldn t since this book was written for the general public looking to read interesting history not some of the normal really boring historical stuff that is churned out But as I said I thought it would briefly talk about the killing then go on quickly to the chase as it is it s a pretty interesting account
The book reads very fast It s pretty fascinating BUT my biggest complaint is Swanson s need to be absolutely disgusting with the morbid details You can honestly tell he relishes in describing the blood blood and more blood I think if I read the word blood once I read it hundreds of times Listen it s not that I can t handle reading it It is all supposed fact I love slasher movies I don t mind violence in books or film but I have to ask did Swanson think he had to include all the disgusting details in order to make his book interesting Let s just say it s not for the faint of heart and I can t help but think the gore is just exploited instead of written in a useful way >> More On Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth The book MANHUNT the 12 Days of Chasing Lincoln s Killers was fasinating This book opened my eyes as to how the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth took place and how it was ended This is a must for any Lincoln reader
Author : Stephen Batchelor Total Page : 320 Publisher : Spiegel Grau Publication Date : 2010 03 02
Confession of a Buddhist Atheist >> insightful a real person story of skepticism faith and the journey into and through Buddhism a hard read at times but well worth it >> Riveting This is one of the liveliest and most thought provoking books on Buddhism published in recent years Apart from addressing the perennial perplexities of karma and rebirth for a Western audience Stephen Batchelor provides a fascinating account of the historical Buddha the society and politics in which he lived and some intriguing stories of his post enlightenment life as a teacher It provides controversial material about the author s own encounters with different forms of Buddhism practices and teachers
Among my favourite lines from the book Gotama did for the self what Copernicus did for the earth he put it in its rightful place despite its continuing to appear just as it did before Gotama no more rejected the existence of the self than Copernicus rejected the existence of the earth Instead rather than regarding it as a fixed non contingent point around which everything else turned he recognized that each self was a fluid contingent process just like everything else
This is a book that will have Tibetan Buddhists debating for years to come A great contribution to Western thought on the Dharma
>> A Must Read for Every Buddhist Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist by well known Buddhist author Stephen Batchelor is an eye opening must read book for every Buddhist from those contemplating becoming Buddhist to His Holiness The Dalai Lama Batchelor captures the true essence of Buddhism and how much of the writings and beliefs were already in practice in India and the Buddha incorporated these ideas to placate the Indian religious authorities as much as anything For example Batchelor points out that the cycle of birth and rebirth was not first proposed by the Buddha but was already well established in Indian religions I have always had trouble believing in the birth/rebirth concept and it is nice to read from such a highly esteemed and educated Buddhist that this is not a part of real Buddhism Batchelor goes back to the Pali Canon the oldest record of the Buddha s beliefs and teachings to get to some of the fundamental truths of Buddhism If you are open to new ideas and do not accept Buddhist teachings as the ultimate word and even if you do you must read this book
Author : Walter Scott Total Page : 338 Publisher : Nabu Press Publication Date : 2010 01 12
Letters On Demonology and Witchcraft >> An excellent book for Scully OR Tabitha This is a reprint of a book published in the 1830 s by Sir Walter Scott as a favor to his son in law Scott researches folklore superstition and witchcraft through folklore trial records and previous scholars in depth to give the reader a comprehensive body of knowledge The modern reader will find more here than she ever knew Countless court cases from all of Europe and especially Scotland where the author resided and England are presented Scott writes from the point of view that he lives in a scientific age and that the possibility of these occurances is absurd but because he gives you all of the information from which he derives his opinion you can make your own Personally I m a fanciful person and would like to believe in ghosts and such but in most of the cases he has plausible explanations for their being impossible especially pertaining to witchcraft Interesting to note in not one of the cases of witchcraft did any of the accused or the accusers mention goddess worship Neither did they in any of the accepted mystical hobbies of the era either He talks of things of which I have never heard For example seers claimed to have captured fairies or slyphs in their crystal balls and they were not seeing something as in the movies but getting the information from the agent inside the ball It takes a while to read as the editors of the period didn t know what to do with commas and run on sentences Some of the words are outdated and are used differently in our time than in his This is an excellent book for both the sceptic and believer as well as Christian or pagan >> A masterful work from 1900 Oddly enough this book talks more about Faeries and defends many accused of witchcraft of influence by the fair folk upon the glens and moors
It is a remarkable work that has Scott s own articulate hand bringing a very interesting world of Celtic myths and fables to life while the rigors of a new age dawn upon them >> Strangeness from the Age of Reason I had always thought of Sir Walter as a rather rational stodgy Brit then I came cross a copy of this book now I m not sure what to think Sir Walter actually seemed to believe many local superstitions the Banshee for example The odd thing is that he seems to have scientificly weighed all the evidence But I guess that if you were sitting around the fire on a cold Scotish night being told ghost stories your objectivity could be expected to drop at least somewhat
Author : Diane Ackerman Total Page : 368 Publisher : Old Street Publishing Ltd Publication Date : 2009
The Zookeeper s Wife >> Avid reader This is a well written book but the style is very unusual and doesn t keep my interest I will eventually complete it but took time out to read another book that holds my interest better >> Intriguing story with a little too much detail Zookeepers all their adult lives Jan and Antonina Zabinski s world was shattered when bombing destroyed their Warsaw Zoo in the early onset of World War II However with clever maneuvering the Zabinskis managed to convince the Germans to let them stay in the villa that came with the zoo property where they would smuggle and hide some 300 Jews over the next four years as part of Poland s Underground movement
Despite any possible dangers to themselves and their young son Rys as well as already struggling with minimal supplies and harsh winters the Zabinskis didn t hesitate to do all that they could to help others in danger at first only a few friends in their immediate sphere and then more and more desperate individuals and families as time progressed
While Ackerman overall does a good job detailing the years of the Zabinskis wartime experience she sometimes goes a little overboard with the details For example readers well know that the Zabinskis are zookeepers and so it s important to set a bit of background about the pre war zoo perhaps a bit about the kinds of animals they once kept i e native to Poland exotic etc just so that the readers can better imagine their daily lives However it s really not necessary for Ackerman having listed the kinds of animals at the zoo in the late 30s to then go into entire chapters detailing the physiological history of the particular animals Not only does it seem like a teenager trying to pad a school report with encyclopedia details but it detracts from the real focus of the book the Zabinskis and their wartime experience
That said I would definitely recommend this book as a worthwhile Holocaust read guaranteed to remain in readers memories for some time to come >> Disliked Not my type of story Too much detail about people and things and not about the people in the story
More Blood More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea >> Good thing it was free I guess I didn t read the reviews well enough This is not so much a story as a bunch of diary entries Not impressed He doesn t seem like he enjoys his job very much
The Blind Side Evolution of a Game >> Casual football fans will love this book What a great book Michael Lewis not only knows how to put together a captivating story he does so with subtle wit and plenty of insight His meticulous research is obvious he ll casually mention a former player and then go into detail about that player s career and its importance to the history o
In Defense of Food An Eater s Manifesto >> Pithy and Powerful Eat food Not too much Mostly plants writes Pollan It s been a few weeks since I read the book and I still remember that Words to live by The book expands on those simple sentences in the subsequent chapters The book is short and well written and dare I say life changing I was already a f
With the Old Breed >> Good read Does a great job of putting you in the shoes of a grunt Didn t serve during WWII but have served in every conflict since Viet Nam and he nails some of the experiences HIs descriptions of what you see hear and smell are dead on Good book and it s on the list of required reading for Marines
Eat Pray Love One Woman s Search for Everything Across Italy India and Indonesia
Eat Pray Love One Woman s Search for Everything Across Italy India and Indonesia >> Another crazy divorcee writes a book How original If I have to read one more mind numbingly insipid novel written by some pill popping neurotic woman who can t keep her life together I will scream I am SO SICK of these women thinking they can write books I am just so tired of their pathetic attempts at humor They allll think they hav
