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 : Paul Tough Total Page : 336 Publisher : Mariner Books Publication Date : 2009 09 10
Whatever It Takes Geoffrey Canada s Quest to Change Harlem and America >> It will change the way you look at poverty and education This book was so well written It completely changed the I now look at poverty and education There is hope Reformers should take note This is the way for real change This is the way for real hope Amazing >> A Must Read Life Changing Book If you are interested in childhood development the future of education in America and closing the achievement gap this book is a must read Engaging and fascinating in turns inspiring and daunting this book delivers it all Paul Tough manages to make a cliff hanger out of a biographical scholarly work Filled with the highlights of mind blowing scholarly research this makes you stop other people in their tracks and demand listen to this >> Making a difference in the lives of poor inner city youth in Harlem Geoffrey Canada has developed a comprehensive holistic formula to successfully educate poor kids in Harlem who historically have not had a good educational outcome This book details the work that went into the program his Harlem Children s Zone developed and administers One of the best parts of the book is the detailed discussion of why kids who come from a background of poverty more often than not do not do well in school It debunks myths that these kids have inferior intellects It covers how their upbringing by well meaning but highly stressed and beleagered parents puts them behind their affluent peers It details how Canada who was born in a poor neighborhood in the South Bronx decided that if these kids were going to succeed in large numbers that his approach was going to have to affect every part of their lives not just what happens while they are in school The city I live in Charlotte NC struggles with many of the same problems of a wide achievement gap between affluent white kids and poor black and Latino children I am telling anyone who will listen that there is a way to educate all of the kids in our community and that what Geoffrey Canada has come up with may be the best approach This is a great book that anyone who is passionate about public education and the inequities that exist in them will enjoy reading
Author : Barack Obama Total Page : 608 Publisher : Random House Large Print Publication Date : 2008 04 29
The Audacity of Hope Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream Random House Large Print >> Typical Socialist Garbage Save your money BO is a clown that has risen because of Affirmative Action and white guilt Of course if you are a Kool Aid drinker then read on >> Audacity of Depression This man has the audacity to prey on our dreams and desires 1 year into his presidency do we have hope Has anything he has promised been even remotely been discussed let alone accomplished You are just a Uncle Tom to your corporate Wall Street masters Mr O Don t bring your whitey agenda any where near my consciousness >> Get for your Library What better book to buy for your private library than the one of the President of the United States who created history
Author : Liaquat Ahamed Publisher : Tantor Media Publication Date : 2009 04 01
Lords of Finance The Bankers Who Broke the World >> Test tube Economics The Lords of Finance is about economics in a test tube or large scale monetary tinkering in response to the upheavals of the first half of the 20th century WWI the Depression etc It is about how the four leading economic powers led by the equivalent of four feds dealt with economic chaos without an apparent clue as to the forces at work In a word the US UK France and Germany had to make it up as they went along a form of alchemy almost simply because they didn t have the background we have today In fact they created the background we use today to keep the economic ship aright
I was struck by the vast impact of the punitive reparations meted out to Germany by the post WWI Treaty of Versailles in 1919 Resultant inflation for example was so bad in Germany at one point in the 20 s that the exchange rate of reichsmarks to dollars was billions to one Also the gold standard was considered sacred no matter what was going on a leading factor in extending the Depression at least according to this book
I also learned in passing that even before WWI war was considered unwise because of massive international economic linkages of imports exports loans and interest rates facts that we are take for granted today
The good news out of this misery if any is that nowadays economics should be more science and less art at least if we ve learned from our mistakes in bygone eras
>> How We Stumbled Into The Great Depression In the middle of a recession there are invariably questions about how we got into it and what we can do to get out of it Politically it quickly devolves into a conflict between the market driven laizzez faire economists and the interventionist Keynesian ones Television and radio infotainers yammer on using their own peculiar jargon that leaves the rest of us who are not economists as much in the dark as we were before
I wanted to know more so I picked up Liaquat Ahamed s detailed history of how the world stumbled into the Great Depression Lords of Finance Ahamed is a twenty year veteran of investment banking and some paragraphs have to be read over a few times but generally it s written for the layman It comes in at 508 pages without notes but it reads like a well crafted novel
The main characters the Lords themselves are Montague Norman of the Bank of England Hjalmar Schacht of the Reischsbank in Germany Benjamin Strong of the N Y Federal Reserve Bank and Emile Moreau of the Banque de France all of whom were well intentioned but ultimately flawed men who were not immune from the kind of gross miscalculations and unwarranted fears that led to the financial disaster of the Great Depression While a great deal of information may be gleaned from their stories that is applicable to the present one must be cautious 2010 is not 1929 Some of the miscalculations early twentieth century central bankers made were over the conduct and financing of World War I No one in financial circles believed the war would outlast the various governments ability to pay for it They were all on the Gold Standard you see and the financial resources of each country were tied to their reserves of gold It was hard to imagine Germany France and Britain would be so foolish as to burden their countries with massive debt just to keep a war going
These top hatted and stiff collared expert prognosticators mired as they were in centuries old financial traditions based on the availability of precious metals completely overlooked the proclivity of wars particularly wars between monarchies empires and single party republics to be self sustaining and self fulfilling If wartime governments run out of money they borrow it mostly from foreign banks incurring massive debt If they don t have enough currency they print it all to keep the war going toward ultimate victory at which time all debts will be easily repaid Or so they thought
The incipient catastrophes from financing the First World War in so unsustainable a fashion were exacerbated by the enmeshment of world financial interests In the introduction Ahmed explains Because financial institutions were so interconnected borrowing large amounts of money from one another even in the nineteenth century difficulties in one area would transmit themselves throughout the entire system
Ahamed stops way short however of ascribing this financial entanglement to any conspiracy of central banking institutions In retrospect it may read like a Dan Brown novel but conspiracies require agreement and the central bankers in the 1920 s could agree on almost nothing Scrambling to force some post war order on the economies of their respective countries they formed alliances made enemies forced concessions engaged in blackmail and all manner of intrigues eventually stumbling into Great Depression through incompetence a too rigid loyalty to ideological principles and misguided policy
The biggest blunder on the road to the Great Depression was the New York Fed s decision to lower interest rates It may have helped Germany s cash flow but it caused massive speculation on Wall Street as investors borrowed more and more money to purchase stocks further inflating the bubble that burst on October 29 1929 Black Tuesday
Ahamed writes Their goal is a strong economy and stable prices This is however the very environment that breeds the sort of over optimism and speculation that eventually ends up destabilizing the economy In the United States during the second half of the 1920s the destabilizing force was to be the stock market p 280
We are put in mind of the economic situation in America before the current recession Overspeculation easy credit artificially inflated prices and a protracted military campaign resulting in massive bad debt much of which is held by foreign banks principally China In the Depression as well as today the main conflict on the road to recovery was Between those who believed that governments could be trusted with discretionary power to manage the economy and those who insisted that government was fallible and therefore had to be circumscribed with strict rules p 230
Traditionalists said Government should keep its hands off the economy and allow the invisible hand of the market to determine its course as proposed by eighteenth century economist Adam Smith Others principally twentieth century economist Maynard Keynes said the government must have control over the economy to keep market pressure from destabilizing it
The real issue for the Federal Reserve governors was that many of the banks closing their doors had sustained such large losses on their loans that they were insolvent the governors made it a principle to let them go under They failed to recognize that by doing so they were undermining public confidence in banks as a repository of savings and were causing the U S credit system to freeze up p 391
What government aid did come was too late By that time Ahamed writes Banks shaken by the previous two years instead of lending out the money used the capital so injected to build up their own reserves
Ahamed seems to say that when a crisis looms the injection of funds to shore up failing banks should come sooner rather than later and in sufficient quantity to capitalize the banks and allow them to begin lending When Adam Smith s invisible hand goes arthritic Maynard Keynes is there to take over the heavy lifting
Amid the chorus of our own contemporary know nothings who spout partisan absurdities about the government not getting involved in economic policy or how deficit spending to get the economy out of crises is tantamount to cultural Armegeddon Ahamed s analysis is a voice of reason The Great Depression was caused by a failure of intellectual will a lack of understanding about how the economy operated No one struggled harder than Maynard Keynes He believed that economists are the trustees not of civilization but of the possibility of civilization p 504 That s something even an artist like me can understand
Bad debt is according to Robert Kiyosaki debt that does not put money in your pocket
>> Absorbing history of a difficult subject by a fine writer Germany funded 90 of World War One through inflation and borrowings 10 through taxes A rather painless way to fund a war but only if you win The pebble in the pond theory of history kicks in the cause of Germany s collapse in 1933 the pebble being war reparations the culpable Britain France and the United States to a lesser degree Margaret MacMillan s 2002 best seller Paris 1919 lays the groundwork for the accusation against Lloyd George Clemenceau and Wilson even Foster Dulles Ahamad s fascinating book focuses on the machinations of the four central bankers of the major powers post World War One His hero however is Maynard Keynes the brilliant Cambridge scholar and economic gadfly whose soaring reputation dominates modern economic theory a half century after his death in 1946 The dry stuff of monetary and economy theory are simplified explained charted and brought to life with enticing details and cameos of the major players Even minor ones get some billing Harry Dexter White Henry Stimson Rudolph von Havenstein You are not left with names but with flesh blood and anecdotes Of the four bankers Hjalmar Schacht intrigues somewhat bizarre as he joined up with Hitler and then was tried and acquitted at Nuremberg Ahamad s priceless photo of Hitler and Schacht marching lock step both with tight demonic stares tells all Germany s inability or refusal to pay the huge bill of war reparations when coupled with its a fragile constitution divided politics bitterness and middle classes decimated by inflation doomed it A whimsical description of FDR and how he daily calculated the price of the dollar concludes the book In sum this is really about government s power to debase money The gold standard was the only plausible defense against the downward spiral in the value of money Once gone we have what we have in the world today A timely read
Author : Jules Feiffer Total Page : 464 Publisher : Nan A Talese Publication Date : 2010 03 16
Backing Into Forward A Memoir >> Voice of part of a generation I grew up with Jules Feiffer though I am slightly younger and found this memoir completely engaging My first encounter with Feiffer was the paperback of Sick Sick Sick in which I encountered the story of an 11 year old who could not play baseball thought he still had time to correct the course of his life throws a ball in the air and in my memory it bonks him on the head Eleven years shot to hell It was my story exacerbated by a brother who was a GREAT baseball player and a jock dad Turns out it was Feiffer s story too sans the jock dad and brother and it is one of the riches of this book and so much for my memory the cartoon story is reproduced in the book it goes through the boy s hands and does not bonk him Feiffer spoke to me from our first encounter
As a professor of US cultural history I found the connections Feiffer had to others of similar political sensibility and artistic orientation a particularly rich story Backing into Forward ties together the Jules Feiffers Mort Sahls Lenny Bruces Mike Nichols and Elaine Mays etc of his times much as the Warren Beatty movie Reds particularly the interviews strewn throughout the film wove together the personalities of an earlier Greenwich Village era that of Eugene O Neill Mabel Dodge John Reed The Masses Max Eastman Big Bill Haywood etc Just as those progenitors faced the Palmer Raids and in some cases prison or deportation Feiffer and those with whom he identified or ceased to identify when they named names faced HUAC Joseph McCarthy and the blacklist Some things are ever thus even now Now Feiffer might have tea bags thrown at him I suppose
Those who lived through the Viet Nam War can hardly forget Feiffer s LBJ portrayals of which I would like to have heard more in Backing into Forward but his book Boom which I have used as a text in classes on the Cold War era summarizes the lunacy which gave us Mutual Assured Destruction as a strategic policy better than anything else available Was there ever a more apt acronym than MAD Feiffer acknowledges many motivations for what he attempted and accomplished two of which predominate becoming famous enough that women would rush to bed him thus making up for his lack of polish with women and changing the world He admits defeat on the latter score but seems to have become a happy husband and father by the end An engaging memoir not to be missed as with the reissues of his cartoons and graphic novels >> The Cartoonist The strength of this memoir lies in its beginning and middle Here the extremely talented Jules Feiffer clearly and often funnily tells of his youth angst ridden family life in the Bronx his mother was not his favorite person and eventual comical service in the Army and his early and constant drive to become a notable cartoonist Anyone with an interest in the comic strips of the mid part of the last century will enjoy the homage paid by Mr Feiffer to the then masters of this specialized but often ignored art form
A self described lefty or liberal in politics the author skates over the very real problems with communism in the 1930s and 40s when Stalin killed many a good artist along with tons of other innocents This however is his memoir and the life Mr Feiffer has led has been almost entirely in acute despair over ever present and suffocating conformists and conservatives
Meanwhile his reporting on abuses in the 1960s Vietnam and the Chicago riots lose some of their fundemtenal power when the main story he relates about the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago is on his getting Hugh Hefner out of the Playboy Mansion to the scene of the action And that one of his major actions in protesting Vietnam was helping to get a full page ad placed in Martha s Vineyard s local paper against a fellow resident of this enclave of the intellectual and political elite Nicholas Katzenbach of President Johnson s cabinet There is a reason the term limousine liberal was coined although Mr Feiffer probably never drove or rode in such a car
The end part of the memoir is of reduced general interest and is devoted to the final stages of Mr Feiffer s long and notable career and is mainly focused on his writing of children s books and of tending to beloved grandchildren
Fans of Mr Feiffer students of comics and those interested in American liberal politics/culture of the 1950s through 70s should buy and read this book
As an aside the jacket design by Michael J Windsor is perfect
>> A Raconteur s Terrific Memoir BACKING INTO FORWARD reads like the memoir of a great raconteur who has the perfect story to capture the personalities events or issues that were in play at every important moment in his life In BIF Feiffer uses a chronological approach to discipline this raconteur s gift The effect is that his memoir which is written with both simplicity and elegance is a near effortless read Feiffer now more entertainer than provocateur has done all the heavy lifting for his readers
Feiffer organizes BIF into three sections These are Gunslinger which shows Jules growing up in the Bronx and laying the groundwork for a life as a cartoonist Famous which shows Feiffer s life and career from his emergence as the cartoonist for The Village Voice to his decision roughly 10 years later to stop psychotherapy and act like a grown up and Another Country which shows Feiffer in his new gig of screenwriter Carnal Knowledge and Popeye and author of 10 children s books
Since this is a raconteur s book a valid approach to a review is to identify a few chapters where Feiffer s stories were especially amusing or insightful While there are many terrific choices three of my favorites for each section of BIF include
o Road Movie Young Jules manages his anxieties as he hitchhikes to California
o Camp Gorgon Jules discusses the chain of command in the army as well as how he managed to hear and see Bobby Thompson s shot heard round the world
o Pony Jules explains his growing appreciation for the art of certain cartoonists as well as the irony of writing MUNRO his subversive book on the army mindset while working at an easy job in an army publications unit
o The Voice Jules describes the moment of his breakthrough at The Village Voice
o Lucking Into the Zeitgeist Jules analyzes the evolution of his style and subjects where the limitations of space backed me into introspection
o Spokesman Jules puts the essence of his reader on the page where he shows the codified communication by which my entire generation lived our lives
o Yaddo Jules discovers he has become a playwright
o Flop Why the first production of Little Murderers was a disaster
o Voiceless Feiffer lands in a better place after he loses his job and page four position at The Village Voice
Certainly the great subject of BIF is Feiffer s extraordinary career Interestingly this did not happen overnight with the publication of MUNRO his first book coming six years after its completion Those hoping to break through themselves will certainly be heartened by the story of Jules s perseverance and working smart strategy to publication
Author : Molly Wizenberg Total Page : 352 Publisher : Simon Schuster Publication Date : 2010 03 23
A Homemade Life Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table >> Molly Best Friend I just love this book Much like her blog it is the perfect combination of storytelling and yummy recipes I have only tried to make about 4 of the recipes Every one even the ones I scrunched my noses at upon first reading turned out to be delicious and something that I will continue to make Her writing draws you in and has a familiarity about it that makes you think she s a friend you have had all along I seriously think that if we lived closer Molly could be my best friend Bold Words but what cay I say I m a dreamer This is my favorite recipe book One of the things that I really like about it is that her directions are very percise and detailed She even tells you what brand ingredients work the best She doesn t seem to have any problems sharing her secrets and I m so very thankful for it and so is my stomach >> Lovely delicous read I am a bit of a foodie and most of my friends know this and so are always turning me on to books and blogs that have to do with/about food One of my fellow foodies turned me on to Orangette a lovely blog regarding food The photos are gorgeous and the recipies terrific Most of all the writing is exquisite While on the site I read about a book that Molly Wizenberg the blogger wrote In my case I do judge books by their cover and the cover of her book was soft and inviting and cozy I ordered the book and started reading it immediately The chapters are short and at the end of each chapter is an incredible recipe that relates to the chapter It was and is one of those books you don t want to put down It s one of those books where you want to try every recipe It is a book I want to give to all of my friends even those who may not enjoy food as much as I do because her story touches each of us Hers is a very real life not amazing but one that you will immediately relate to
If you want to read about one s love for food one s love for family and friends and one s love of life this is the book for you I give it 10 stars out of 10 A Homemade Life Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table >> Fun book great recipes I just may have to buy this book
Her writing is enjoyable to read mostly light fun recounts of her life experiences and the recipes are intriguing
Word to the wise You are CRAZY if you do not try the roasted cauliflower recipe at the end of the book I don t even care for cooked cauliflower and I CAN T STOP EATING THIS It s fast easy to prepare and the cilantro/lime dressing is perfect
Author : Roxana Saberi Total Page : 336 Publisher : Harper Publication Date : 2010 04 01
Between Two Worlds My Life and Captivity in Iran >> Must read Roxana Saberi s book Between Two Worlds chronicals her time spent as a journalist in Evin Prison in Iran Young Saberi has been followed for years and finally before she decides to leave the country the authorities arrest her on trumped up charges of being a spy She had been living in Iran for six years as a journalist and was writing a book about Iranian society Well she involunarily saw more of Iranian society than she bargained for she saw the inside of the notorious Evin Prison As Saberi was imprisoned on trumped up charges she would soon find others imprisoned under similar circumstances She found true freindship with the women she shared her cell with The world needs this book to see human rights abuses as told first hand This Islamic Regime imprisons innocents for their work on AIDS They imprison religious minorities including Baha is political activists and others If the Islamic Iranian regime treats innocent people this way by imprisoning them torturing them and withholding basic human rights the rest of the world needs to know it and needs to denounce it Thank you Ms Saberi for bringing the plight of ordinary Iranians to our attention I sincerely hope the world will read your book and become outraged >> Struggle of the Soul I bought this book yesterday afternoon and could not put it down until 1 00 a m Roxanna weaves the rich pageantry of the best and worst of the Iranian society with a story of soul searching through the mental and physical anguish of her captivity into an intricate fabric worthy of the finest rugs from Iran Her struggle to tell the truth and do what is right is all too human in the light of all the forced confessions that have occurred since the June election and brings a firsthand prespective into perhaps the least of suffering that those people were going through
It also sheds a brilliant light onto the lives of 2 of the 5 Baha i leader who have been in captivity for over two years for probably sticking to the truth as had many other women for various other beliefs The choice to stand up for what is right vs the violent forces of darkness is put into an all human story firsthand I highly recommend this book >> A Wonderful Read Between Two Worlds is an excellent read that I highly recommend I found it especially interesting since I have known the author for many years
She is an incredibly brilliant young woman with a curious nature and an unending thirst for knowledge These characteristics prompted her to sieze the opportunity to fulfill her dream of becoming a foreign correspondent and to learn about her father s homeland
The country and its people fascinated her though she was extremely concerned about the human rights of the citizens
The book is a very vivid well written description of her arrest and unjust incarceration She speaks with much compassion and admiration for her cellmates
Author : Jenny Sanford Total Page : 240 Publisher : Ballantine Books Publication Date : 2010 02 05
Staying True >> Being straightforward Jenny Sanford s biggest mistake was not listening to what her husband had to say early on in their relationship He is a very self centered man and really gave her many clues as to what really made him tick I m sorry their marriage didn t work out mostly for the 4 boys but she was smart in walking when she did He doesn t deserve his family >> Disappointed I was excited about reading this book Initially my heart went out to Jenny Sanford but the more I got into the book I realized Jenny brought on a lot of her problems herself She knew early in the marriage and even before the marraige he was extremely selfish and self centered I did have sympathy for her during a few times in her relationship with him but there comes a point when you just have to leave Jenny stuck around far too long but for reasons I m sure she feels were justified However I can only imagine the emotional turmoil and confusion she was going through This is certainly not a situation I would ever want to be in but I just don t see what Jenny Sanford s purpose was for this book Perhaps she should have kept it as a personal journal and shared it with her children later on I really wasn t very impressed at all by the writing style and I was appalled by all the things she put with with her husband It was obviously a one sided marraige and I just can t condone anyone staying with someone for that long knowing he was heading down the self serving road he was on >> Feeling her pain I had to read this book because I too had a husband who had a long term affair that ended our nearly 36 year marriage The grief from such an event is nearly overwhelming but I was also willing like Jenny to forgive my husband of this extreme infidelity if he would end it permanently Jenny continually offered her husband what I call space and grace over the lifetime of their marriage until the last when he wouldn t give up his mistress and kept lying about it When my husband moved out for the second time to be with his lover that s when I got the attorney and started divorce proceedings A marriage is so sacred in the eyes of God and thus should be to us as well that one doesn t leave it because one is frustrated with the selfish egocentric behaviors of one s spouse or because they do stupid things in general because as a wise man once said It s the sand in the oyster that makes the pearl In other words struggles will be there irritations beyond numbering will be there but if both parties continually try to be humble and helpful and earnestly seek the good of the other spouse the marriage will be blessed Adultery can be forgiven too and the marriage salvaged when there is true remorse true repentance in the heart of the adulterer This clearly wasn t there in Gov Sanford s case and Jenny took the action required by the situation When I was going through some counseling to deal with my husband s departure the most important thing I heard from her was that my husband s adultery was NOT my fault To Jenny Elizabeth E and now Sandra B Ladies it s NOT your fault either
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
