Bad Girl by Leslie Hall,Capra Press, 1996
The Shattered World by Michael Reaves,Timescape Books, 1984
Slippage by Harlan Ellison,Mark Ziesing Books, 1997
Domestic Violence for Beginners by Alisa del Tufo,Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc, 1995
Breaking the News:How the News Media Undermine American Democracy by James Fallows,Pantheon Books, 1996
Close-Ups by Sandra Thompson,Plume Books (New American Library), 1984
Time Dollars by Edgar Cahn and Jonathan Rowe,Rodale Press, 1992
Go Now by Richard Hell,Scribner's, 1996
The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes,Perennial Library (Harper & Row), 1985
America:Who Stole the Dream? by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele,Andrews and McMeel, 1996
Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham,Llewellyn Publications, 1988
Reap the Whirlwind by C.J. Cherryh and Mercedes Lackey,Baen Books, 1989
Beneath the Wheel by Hermann Hesse,Bantam Books, 1968
Ben and Jerry's Double-Dip by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield,Simon and Schuster, 1997
City Lights Review #5; War After War edited by Nancy J. Peters,City Lights Books, 1992
Real Majority, Media Minority: The Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting by Laura Flanders,Common Courage Press, 1997
Bad Girl, Leslie Hall, Capra Press, 1996
The Shattered World, Michael Reaves, Timescape Books, 1984
Slippage, Harlan Ellison, Mark Ziesing Books, 1997
Domestic Violence for Beginners, Alisa del Tufo, Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc, 1995
Breaking the News: How The Media Undermine American Democracy, James Fallows, Pantheon Books, 1996
Close-Ups, Sandra Thompson, Plume Books (New American Library), 1984
Time Dollars, Edgar Cahn and Jonathan Rowe, Rodale Press, 1992
Go Now, Richard Hell, Scribner's (Simon and Schuster), 1996
The Old Gringo, Carlos Fuentes, Perennial Library (Harper & Row), 1985
America: Who Stole the Dream?, Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Andrews and McMeel, 1996
Wicca: A Guide For The Solitary Practitioner, Scott Cunningham, Llewellyn Publications, 1988
Reap the Whirlwind, C.J. Cherryh and Mercedes Lackey, Baen Books, 1989
Beneath the Wheel, Hermann Hesse, Bantam Books, 1968
Ben and Jerry's Double Dip, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Simon and Schuster, 1997
City Lights Review #5: War After War, Nancy J. Peters (ed.), City Lights Books, 1992
This is a group of what might be called contemporary, life-in-the-90s stories. These are tales of the things that can happen to people living normal, but troubled lives.
Here are a few examples. A woman living alone in an apartment has her clothes stolen out of one of the building's washing machines by the resident strange person, something he has done before. A divorced woman moves to a new city, intending to start over. She stumbles into a relationship with a married man; he says he loves her. He promises to take her on a weekend trip, then, suddenly, no phone calls, no letters from him, nothing. She constantly calls him, wanting to know what's going on. She is the one who gets the police visit with the message, stay away from him or go to jail. A young Hispanic mother does her best to stay away from the baby's father, a member of a local gang. A young juvenile delinquent, feared by most everyone in the neighborhood, becomes a hero when he stops a man who has been exposing to schoolgirls waiting at bus stops.
The characters in these stories could live down the street, they could be a relative, they could be anyone; these stories could happen anywhere. This is a really interesting, and eye-opening, bunch of tales, and gets a strong thumbs-up.
This is a fantasy novel that takes place a millenium after the world has been torn apart by an evil sorcerer called the Necromancer. Each of the fragments, measuring a few miles across, retains gravity and atmosphere, and relatively stable orbits around each other, by magic.
Beorn, a master thief, is subject to a werespell that occasionally turns him into a bear. With promises of a cure, he is coerced into stealing a certain Runestone, a fragment's magical power source, by the enchantress Ardatha to be used against her enemy, the sorcerer Pandrogas. The theft goes awry, and it turns into a chase from fragment to fragment before the final end of everything (the only transportation between fragments is by sailing ships made from the bones, skin and tendons of dragons).
This is an interesting book which gets better in the last third of the book, but, ultimately, it isn't enough. This is an above average novel, but just barely above average.
This is a group of new speculative, or imaginative, fiction stories from Harlan Ellison. Winner of many fiction awards, including lifetime achievement awards from The World Fantasy and World Horror Conventions, and several science fiction Hugo and Nebula awards, Ellison has put together some stories that are not specifically science fiction, fantasy, or horror stories, but a combination of all three, like Twilight Zone stories.
Included are two teleplays, including one that was shown on the '80s Twilight Zone. The other one, which almost made it to TV, is about a male social worker who taunts a couple of inner city children with tales of an anti-Santa Claus named Nackles who will take children away forever. The social worker then gets to meet Nackles in person.
Among the other stories in this book are the story of an ex-Nazi war criminal who is caught alone in a forest and punished, not by a Jew, but by a dryad, a member of the forest people. A black telepath is sent to a southern maximum-security prison to see if a convicted mass murderer is really guilty. A miniature dragon falls in love with its owner; a computer that feeds on human blood.
If the $75.00 price tag on this limited edition is a little steep, Houghton Mifflin has published a less expensive edition of this Must Purchase of a book, which I really loved. The stories are fascinating and well done from beginning to end, with that extra little bit of weird. Slippage is one of those books for which the description "first-rate" isn't good enough.
One would think that domestic violence is not appropriate for what is almost a comic book, but del Tufo does an incredible job with this book. With 15 years of experience helping battered women in New York City, she asserts that there is plenty of social and historical blame to go around. It ranges from a system that places the burden of proof, and the burden to fix the relationship, on the woman, to the theories of Sigmund Freud which say that women have an innate need to be controlled and dominated to religion's desire to keep the family together, sometimes at all costs (to anyone with access to a Bible, read the Book of Judges Chapter 19).
Did you know that the term "rule of thumb" comes from original English law and said that it was legal for a man to beat his wife with a stick as long as that stick was no thicker than his thumb?
Ask a batterer and it's always her fault-she's always too this or not enough that.
To say that multiple copies of this book belong in every police station, church, therapist's office, synogague and Department of Family Services in America (and that's only for starters) may be the understatement of the year.
To many people, including James Fallows, the problems with the mainstream media are numerous.
The recent huge growth in TV journalist shows like The McLaughlin Group and The Capital Gang have led to more opportunities for reporters to sound like they know something about all the contemporary issues. Much of their knowledge could have been gained from a couple of quick phone calls to someone who actually knows the subject, and could be no bigger than a soundbite. A permanent spot on such shows can lead to seemingly the ultimate journalistic perk-big lecture fees. President Clinton's Americorps plan for an extra $10,000 for college was received enthusiastically by the public, but was ridiculed by the press, people who think nothing of spending $4000 per year for their child's kindergarten. The press is less interested in explaining how the latest budget proposal, for instance, will affect ordinary Americans than it is in speculating how it will help Congressional Republicans or hurt the Administration. During campaigns, the media spends more time on which candidate is ahead according to the latest polls than looking at what the candidates are actually saying.
All is not doom and gloom, according to Fallows. Some medium-sized newspapers and TV stations have begun to ask the public what kind of stories they would like, and have responded accordingly. The only complaints to this public-service journalism have come from the media old guard.
This is a very interesting and detailed book on a subject that, like it or not, affects all of us. Well worth reading.
This is a group of short stories about the ups and downs of being an '80s independent woman, These are tales of first sex, of having an affair with a man with hypoglycemia, of a woman inviting herself across the country to visit an ex-boyfriend, tales of Hollywood parties, child rearing, a woman wanting to take her dying mother to the beauty parlor, tales that move back and forth over the last 30 years.
With a minimum of hipness and trendiness, Thompson has written a vivid and realistic account of a woman's life. It's a short collection, but eloquent and very much worth reading.
Time Dollars is a concept that is reviving the spirit of volunteering in America.
Here's an example of how it works. Mary, an elderly person doesn't get around very well, but every day she has a list of other elderly people that she calls on the phone. She calls mostly to gab, but also to make sure that the other person is eating and taking their medicine, and to let them know they haven't been forgotten. Mary reports her hours to the "office" where everyone's hours are tracked on computer. For each call, Mary gets a Time Dollar, to use when she needs help. Each week, Bill drives Mary to the grocery store. Mary uses a Time Dollar and Bill gains one, to be used to get his lawn mowed or his walk shoveled. On and on and on it goes.
The program exists statewide in Michigan and Missouri, and in cities including Ithaca, New York and Miami. The original intent was as a help-the-elderly program, but it doesn't have to stay that way. It can be townwide, and include local stores willing to accept partial payment in Time Dollars, or it can be reduced in scale to just a senior citizens center or condo complex.
This book does a really good job at answering all the questions proponents or opponents might have about Time Dollars. Here is an inspiring look at how to use a vast untapped resource in this society.
Billy, a junkie punk musician in New York City, and Chrissa, his sometime girlfriend, are commissioned by a record producer friend to fly to Los Angeles and drive back cross-country in the producer's flame orange '57 DeSoto. The intention is that Billy should do the writing, and Chrissa take pictures of their experiences along the way and turn it into a book (all expenses paid, by the way). This is something which Billy attributes to his never-ending ability to attract good luck.
Billy looks at the world through a filter of drugs, sex, self-hatred and the desire to change his ways. The trip is an emotional roller coaster for both of them. It is never completed, ending sadly and abruptly near Billy's hometown of Lexington, Kentucky.
You know how some books are really good, but they just take a while to get interesting, to get "going"? This book was going from the first page, and didn't stop until the end. I give it a double thumbs-up.
Set during the Mexican Revolution, this is the story of an anonymous American civil war veteran, with something of a death wish, who joins a group of revolutionaries planning to meet up with Pancho Villa. Headed by Tomas Arroyo, the band has recently burned to the ground a hacienda where Arroyo grew up (as one of the workers). The two have a less than happy relationship. Into the mix comes Harriet Winslow, a younger American woman who has come to teach English to the children of the hacienda owner, now gone. The result is a love triangle with tragic consequences all around.
Fuentes does a wonderful job from start to finish with this story. In a world where fiction writing seems to consider sex, violence and car chases more important than characters and storytelling, this novel is a welcome alternative.
Starting life as a multi part series in the Philadelphia Inquirer, this book looks at contemporary America from a neglected perspective: that of middle-class Americans who have been watching their fortunes shrink across the board over the last few years.
The authors, both Pulitzer Prize winners, give many examples of how things have gotten worse for the majority of Americans. There is a government program which allows and individuals to hire foreign workers, circumventing the regular immigration process, if it is certified, by the company or individual, that no properly qualified American is available to fill the job. Whether or not a diligent search for a qualified American has actually been undertaken is entirely another matter. The US is the only country in the world to have a policy of totally free trade and open market access. For the last 20 years, America has had a nearly continuous trade deficit with all the major industrial countries (not combined, but individually) including a trade deficit in computers, supposedly America's economic savior, with China. Most federal job retraining programs, assuming one can get into them, are about at the level of a joke. The chance of getting a job in a new field at anything like one's old wage is slim at best.
For those who are experiencing firsthand the "global economy", and want the details, this is the book. Along with the other two books in this series, America: What Went Wrong? and America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? (both equally recommended), this book forms a devastating chronicle of what has become an America of the rich, by the lobbyists, and for the corporations.
Knowing absolutely nothing about Wicca before I started this book, I had no idea what to expect. Cunningham does an admirable job at taking the reader through Wicca, starting with the basics.
Wicca has a simple idea of morality: do what you want, as long as you harm none.Wicca is centered around reverence for nature and acknowledges a supreme power from which the universe sprang, personified into two basic beings: the Goddess and the God. There isn't one holy book which is the same for everyone, just as there isn't a "right" way to worship in Wicca. Everyone is encouraged to find their own path.
Cunningham also includes many rituals to copy or adapt, ranging from simple rituals to be performed at sunrise or sunset each day, to more involved rituals to be performed on certain days of the year.
To those who want to practice Wicca, but don't know where to start, or think that it can only be done as part of a group, this is the book. To those who simply want to learn about another way of looking at the world around them, this is the book.
Part of a barbarian fantasy series that takes place sometime after the fall of the Roman Empire, it's about the adherents of a religion called the Church of Knowledge. Keeping to themselves in a world of cannons and magic, they keep an uneasy peace with their neighbors.
One day, a group of nomads called the Vredai show up in the area. The first thought is that they are marauders planning to wipe this branch of the Church of Knowledge right off the map. Actually, the Vredai are fleeing a group of real marauders called the Talchai who nearly wiped them off the map.
The two leaders get together, and, realizing that they have a lot to learn from each other, form an alliance and get ready for the coming of the Talchai. But, there are those in both camps who are not happy with the new arrangements, and aim to do something about it.
It's kind of an old concept, and, as I mentioned, it's part of a series, so there isn't an absolute conclusion at the end. But in this particular case, in the hands of two people who know their way around a fantasy novel like Cherryh and Lackey, it works really well.
Hans Giebenrath is a very gifted young boy and the pride of his small German town. For many months, he spends hours a day after school cramming for a state-wide academic competition to win a place at Maulbronn Academy, one of the few higher education opportunities available (something like contemporary Japanese college entrance exams).
He wins the competition, and at Maulbronn, he meets up with a poetic soul named Heilner who doesn't take all the work, work, work so seriously. They become friends, and Hans begins to see that studying Latin and Greek and math are not all there is to life. Hans's grades and his whole mental and emotional condition don't just sink, they plummet. He barely survives the school year, and doesn't return for a second year.
He becomes apprentice to a local metalsmith (it's either that, or become a clerk somewhere in the state bureaucracy). Hans quickly learns what his life has become; work in a hot, sweaty, repetitive job for six days a week, and get extremely drunk with some co-workers on the seventh day. The book comes to a a sad and abrupt ending.
Said to be a spiritual autobiography, this book is recommended not just because it's an interesting and well-written story, but because it makes some good points about how the educational system feels that ambition and intellect are more important than things like soul and emotion.
Ben and Jerry, the ice cream guys, explainin this book how they, and anyone, can run a business led by personal values (presumably meaning more than just, profit, profit, profit). From the time they opened their first ice cream shop in 1978, one of Cohn and Greenfield's major principles has been to buy from, and give back to, the community as much as possible. This has ranged from buying milk from local dairy farmers to staffing a New York City scoopshop with homeless and ex-homeless people to limiting their first stock offering to Vermont residents as a way of saying thanks. They're also not afraid to talk about those areas of internal operations where they haven't known what they're doing.
What's even better about this book is that Ben and Jerry explain how anyone can bring their values to the forefront in the workplace. It doesn't have to involve a major restructuring to create another Ben and Jerry's, but there are things that anyone can do (start a recycling program at work, buy chlorine-free paper, or buy from an organic coop instead of a corporate food distributor.
I really enjoyed this book. It's easy to read, and has lots of good points that can apply to nearly any business. Well worth reading for progressive activists and hard-nosed business owners.
This is a group of short essays that have an alternative look at the Gulf War as their starting point but travel all over the landscape from there. With contributors like Noam Chomsky, Allan Ginsberg, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Winona LaDuke, the topics in this better-than-excellent anthology include: the slaughter of Iraqi civilians; America searching for a new enemy to replace Communism; a nearly total ignorance of Islam and Arab affairs on the part of Americans; the Patriot missile was not exactly the technical marvel it was said to be (the number of Scud missiles it actually destroyed was closer to zero);a Palestinian perspective on Israeli closures of Gaza and the West Bank written by an American Jew living in the West Bank; and story after story of media manipulation by the US authorities.
This book does a very good job of blowing holes in the story of a grand international coalition coming together under American leadership to defeat this terrible person threatening our way of life. Read the official histories of the Gulf War and the biographies of the major players, thenreadWar After War. It's a real eye-opener.