Reference & Collections Books - Page 3

The Economist Book of Obituaries

Keith Colqhoun, Ann Wroe

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

people were dying to be included... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

As a big fan of well-written obituaries (like those in the New York Times) I am always looking for more pungently penned death notices.

This collection of obits from the Economist was right up my alley. They never published obits prior to 1995 so they are making up for lost time. They only publish one per week so they are ultra-selective. There are plenty of famous deaths marked in this book. I prefer those that honor people we might have never heard of, like Jean Baudrillard the philosopher of consumerism, Christopher Cockerell, the inventor of the hovercraft, and Rene' Thom the inventor of catastrophe theory.

One particular favorite is for "Bip." Do you remember Bip? Read this fine collection and you'll remember him.. Psst...if you know who Bip was please say nothing about it....

Editorial Review:

For more than a decade, The Economist has included unique and original obituaries in a quite popular column. The obituaries are remarkable because of the unpredictable selection of people written about, the surprising lives they led, and the brilliant writing style. This volume gathers two hundred of the best obituaries. The selection for this book ranges far and wide: Syd Barret of Pink Floyd to John Kenneth Galbraith; Pope Jean Paul II to Sony founder Akio Morita; Este Lauder to Hunter S. Thompson; and Marcel Marceau to even Alex the African Grey (sciences best-known parrot). The book includes illustrations and photographs.

The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The long and eventful life of Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) was full of rich experiences and courageous actions. The niece of Theodore Roosevelt, she married a distant relative and Columbia University law student named Franklin Delano Roosevelt; he gradually ascended throughout the world of New York politics to reach the U.S. presidency in 1932. Throughout his three terms, Eleanor Roosevelt was not only intimately involved in FDR’s personal and political life, but led women’s organizations and youth movements and fought for consumer welfare, civil rights, and improved housing. During World War II she traveled with her husband to meet leaders of many powerful nations; after his death in 1945 she worked as a UN delegate, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights, newspaper columnist, Democratic party activist, world-traveler, and diplomat. By the end of her life, Eleanor Roosevelt was recognized throughout the world for her fortitude and commitment to the ideals of liberty and human rights. Her autobiography constitutes a self-portrait no biography can match for its candor and liveliness, its wisdom, tolerance, and breadth of view—a self-portrait of one of the greatest American humanitarians of our time.

Helen Keller: The Story of My Life (Airmont Classic)

Helen Keller

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 67 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

One of the "hundred most important books of the twentieth century" (New York Public Library), finally published in complete form.

The story of Helen Keller, the young girl who triumphed over deafness and blindness, has been indelibly marked into our cultural consciousness. That triumph, shared with her teacher Anne Sullivan, has been further popularized by the play and movie The Miracle Worker. Yet the astonishing original version of Keller's and Sullivan's story, first published in 1903, has been out of print for many years and lost to the public.

Now, one hundred years after its initial publication, eminent literary scholar Roger Shattuck, in collaboration with Keller biographer Dorothy Herrmann, has reedited the book to reflect more accurately its original composition. Keller's remarkable acquisition of language is presented here in three successive accounts: Keller's own version; the letters of "teacher" Anne Sullivan, submerged in the earliest edition; and the valuable documentation by their young assistant, John Macy. Including opening and closing commentary by Shattuck and notes by Hermann, this volume will stand for years as the definitive edition of a classic work. 10 b/w illustrations.

Microbe Hunters

Paul De Kruif

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Preserved for History 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I read this book as a child and it was fascinating reading. Some of what is described is still current (Pasteur's rabies vaccine) while some treatments are long out of use (Ehrlich's "magic bullet" for syphillis was actually derived from arsenic and had a fair amount of side effects-an accurate cure would not be developed until the discovery of Penicillin). Also some of the attitudes taken by the writer are racist such as the quip along the lines that "you couldn't tell the Africans with sleeping sickness apart from the healthy ones because they were all lazy". This should remind people of the dichotomy that existed in society then. Also biology then was like a manic gold rush. There were no restrictions on testing medicenes so that famous scientific figures would test the treatments on friends, family or if they were brave, themselves. One thing that was strongly prevalent then was the optimism of a cure for the various diseases. There was no sense of a pharmeceutical industry trying to quickly bring to market a highly profitable drug, whether or not it was safe or effective or even more than slightly different from other medications. There was no sense of cynicism then. Once the germ theory was developed, people realized what lived amidst their world and sought to find ways to have people live better and healthier lives. So you can dismiss some of the outdated attitudes and ideology and see this book as specimen on a microscope slide, frozen in time, to be examined from a new perspective

Editorial Review:

From the top of today's news, where reoprts of Ebola and HIV loom large, comes the story of microbes, bacteria, and how disease shaoes our everyday lives and society thrives. The superheroes in this scheme are the scientists, bacteriologists, doctors, and medical technicians who wage active war against bacteria. The new Introduction to this book places this history in a thoroughly modern context.

Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter in the Bitterroot Wilderness

Pete Fromm

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A great adventure painted vividly & honestly........... 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Started this absorbing adventure when I arrived home from my work day (in the office) & finished 3 hours later. What a thrilling few hours it was too!.

The story starts as a young, immature college guy rather niavely (& foolishly) takes on a 7 month job in the wilds with no experience, knowledge, or realistic idea of how he will cope out of his comfort zone & what it takes to survive on his own during the harsh winter weather living in a tent.

It's surprisingly honest & revealing - most adventurers only recount the highlights & thrills (without exposing their fears & weaknesses).

Pete Fromm writes vividly & from the heart - it takes a courageous man to expose his inner thoughts & anxieties to his readers.

I found some of his descriptions of hunting/killing the wildlife a little graphic (so vegetarians beware), but towards the end of the book his growing maturity & awareness of nature & the lives of creatures in the wild, give me reason to believe he learnt to love & respect the wildlife (even if he still needed to hunt & trap to survive).

By the end of the book, his words come across as skillful as any seasoned writer & it was not surprising that he now has several books published.

I hope all who read this book enjoy it as much as I did....................

Editorial Review:

"The wardens climbed into their truck, ready to leave. 'You'll need about seven cords of firewood. Concentrate on that. You'll have to get it all in before the snow grounds your truck.'"

"Though I didn't want to ask, it seemed important. 'What's a cord?'"

So begins Pete Fromm's seven winter months alone in a tent in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness guarding salmon eggs. After blundering into this forbidding errand as a college lark, Fromm gradually come face to face with the blunt realities of life as a contemporary mountain man. Brutal cold, isolation, and fearful risks balance against the satisfaction of living a unique existence in modern America.

This award-winning narrative is a gripping story of adventure, a rousing tale of self-sufficiency, and modern-day Walden. From either perspective, Fromm lives up to his reputation as one of the West's strongest new voices.

The One Hundred: The 100: Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History

Michael H. Hart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 86 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

I continue to read this book over and over 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

One may not agree with the order of the individuals in Michael H. Hart's list. This is expected. The most important things this book did for me was to give me biographies of important people(many of whom I never heard of) and more importantly a timeline of history. One gets a better feel of how history unfolds when reading The 100 in chronological order. I also have the 1978 edition. It's interesting to note that in the 14 years between the two editions individuals moved up or down or fell off the list. Such is the case with several Communist thinkers and leaders. After the fall of the Berlin Wall Communism has lost much of it's influence. In reality its influence lasted only about 70 years. I've kept this book in my "bathroom library" for 15 years. It gets a lot of comments from guests who peek at it during their short "visit" on the throne.

Editorial Review:

A list of the one hundred most influential people in history features descriptions of the careers, contributions, and accomplishments of the political and religious leaders, inventors, writers, artists, and others who changed the course of history. Simultaneous.

Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix

Charles R. Cross

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 54 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Very informative, but weak and irritating writing style. 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I'm just re-reading Cross's book for the second time. I thought I would give it a second chance. I was quite irritated by it the first time, although the wealth of detail on Jimi's diificult early life in particular was very interesting and for me completely new.
Second time around I am even more irritated by Cross's style and errors. He seems to me to be guity of just guessing when he doesn't know for sure, and of stating 'as fact' stories from people which in reality are more likely merely unconfirmed (unconfirmable?) personal anecdotes.
E.g. 1
he repeats an 'eyewitnesses' incorrect description of what Jimi wore during his performance at Monterey. Jeez... How easy would that be to check???
E.g.2
He says the Rainbow bridge concert at Maui began with a Hare Krishna group leading the assembled in chanting 'Om'. (Er... but Hare Krishna's DO NOT chant 'Om'). Cross presumably guessed who the group leading the chanting was.
That might not seem like such a crime. But why do that?
AND I feel sure if he did that on this 'fact' he'll have done it elsewhere. Bad scholarship and bad biography writing.
How about not knowing the difference between 'Voodo Chile' and Voodo Child (Slight return) and referring to them as if they are ONE song.
Or referring to Eva Sunqvist as his "favourite Swedish groupie" at a time when he hadn't even met her yet as she was an anonymous fan who had sent him roses at each swedish gig and who was a virgin prior to her encounter with Jimi. Etc., etc.
There are many other facts like this which he got wrong, and many stories that seem to be hyped up to my mind.
E.g the 'not serving clowns' anecdote that he made so much of in the beginning (and then repeated later on in the book). I'm sure it has some grain of truth in it, but Cross appears to have accepted Noel's probably fuzzily remembered anecdote and then embellished it himself.

Another example is Jimi supposedly spending a couple of hours one night playing well-known Jazz standards with a lounge pianist in Morocco. Jimi knew "two hours" worth of "Jazz standards"??? Sure. Right.
More likely that the pianist played some jazz standards and that Jimi sat in and improvised along with him.

Am I being too pedantic?
It just seems to me that Cross is adding to the mythology...and haven't we had enough of that already..?

Fans of this book may ask 'what else can be done when all we have to go on is people's stories from forty years ago'?
Obviously, any author of Cross's age HAS TO rely on anecdotes - but there are other and better ways of choosing and expressing the same information.
So, here are some requests to Charles to consider before the next reprint:
1. Present anecdotes as anecdotal and DO NOT dress them up AS FACT.
2. State your sources.
3. Make it clear when there is a difference of opinion about a supposed event and let us the reader decide.

Compare his method with John McDermott and Eddie Kramer's book,"Hendrix: Setting the Record Straight" or the excellent book Not Necessarily Stoned, But Beautiful: The Making of "Are You Experienced" by Sean Egan.

Those are examples of a more honest and therefore more accurately informative way to go about biography. And those books are therefore in my opinion a much more enjoyable read and are much better written.

To give him his due, Charles Cross HAS gathered together a lot of fascinating material that I - as a long-time Hendrix fan - was unaware of before. He has often put some events in a time frame and context that I hadn't understood properly or so well before. So I am glad to have the book. But Charles rarely qoutes his sources. Which makes it harder to guage the accuracy of the info or for anyone to check it. By doing so he also thereby raises his own status to that of THE storyteller and quasi-witness instead of what he is in reality which is a mere chronicler of stories from others long AFTER the events. See how he starts off his book with himself centre-stage discovering Lucille's grave and taking Leon there. I think this says a lot about his approach. i.e. I detect a lot of 'look what I know/have discovered' all the way through his book. Which is OK, as he clearly has unearthed a great deal of little-known information.
But its precisely that lack of humility that allows him to justify making up facts when he doesn't know the detail and shows his lack of respect to his readers assuming most of us won't notice.

I read many people championing this book as THE definitive Hendrix Biography.
Well, I agree it is a welcome addition. But, In my opinion, there are a good deal better books out there. THE definitive Hendrix Biography? Nah!
This book definitely is NOT that, in my opinion. Not by a long way.

Editorial Review:

On the 35th anniversary of his death comes the definitive biography of rock 'n' roll legend Jimi Hendrix-by the New York Times bestselling author Charles R. Cross oinciding with the 35th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix's tragic death in 1970, Room Full of Mirrors is the definitive biography of rock 'n' roll's greatest guitarist. Meticulously researched and based on more than 300 interviews with those who knew him best-more than half of whom have never spoken about him before-this landmark book recounts the entire arc of Hendrix's life, from his troubled childhood in Seattle's projects and the early loss of his mother to his struggles against racial prejudice as a young musician and his rapid ascent to the top amidst the swinging London scene, and finally to the apex of his career headlining Woodstock in 1969, with his death occurring a year later.

Let Me Hear Your Voice: A Family's Triumph Over Autism

Catherine Maurice

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Total reviews: 90 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

She was a beautiful doelike child, with an intense, graceful fragility. In her first year, she picked up words, smiled and laughed, and learned to walk. But then Anne-Marie began to turn inward. And when her little girl lost some of the words she had acquired, cried inconsolably, and showed no interest in anyone around her, Catherine Maurice took her to doctors who gave her a devastating diagnosis: autism.
In their desperate struggle to save their daughter, the Maurices plunged into a medical nightmare of false hopes, "miracle cures," and infuriating suggestions that Anne-Marie's autism was somehow their fault. Finally, Anne-Marie was saved by an intensive behavioral therapy.
Let Me Hear Your Voice is a mother's illuminating account of how one family triumphed over autism. It is an absolutely unforgettable book, as beautifully written as it is informative.
"A vivid and uplifting story . . . Offers new strength to parents who refuse to give up on their autistic children." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Outstanding . . . Heartfelt . . . A lifeline to families in similar circumstances." -- Library Journal


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography

Frank Lloyd Wright

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Frank Lloyd Wright exerted perhaps the greatest influence on twentieth century design. In a volume that continues to resonate more than seventy years after its initial publication, Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography contains the master architect's own account of his work, his philosophy, and his personal life, written with his signature wit and charm.

Wright (1867-1959) went into seclusion in a Minnesota cabin to reflect and to record his life experiences. In 1932, the first edition of the Autobiography was published. It became a form of advertising, leading many readers to seek out the master architect--thirty apprentices came to live and learn at Taliesin, Wright's Wisconsin home/school/studio, under the master's tutelage. (By 1938, Taliesin West, in Arizona, was the winter location for Wright's school.)

The volume is divided into five sections devoted to family, fellowship, work, freedom, and form. Wright recalls his childhood, his apprenticeship with Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, the turmoil of his personal life, and the background to his greatest achievements, including Hollyhock House, the Prairie and the Usonian Houses, and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

A Book of Ages: An Eccentric Miscellany of Great and Offbeat Moments in the Lives of the Famous and Infamous, Ages 1 to 100

Eric Hanson

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Editorial Review:

AGE ISN’T JUST A NUMBER—IT’S A WAY OF KEEPING SCORE.
THIS IS YOUR SCORECARD.

The day we turn any age, we become contemporaries of everyone who has ever been that age, and it becomes our business to know that Bob Dylan wrote “Blowin’ in the Wind” when he was twenty, Orson Welles cowrote, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane when he was twenty-five, Winston Churchill was fired from the Admiralty when he was forty and took up painting, and Jane Austen died, unmarried and mostly unknown, when she was forty-one. Knowing who did what when provides the yardstick by which to measure our own progress; it’s comforting to learn that Grandma Moses didn’t show her first painting until she was seventy-eight, and discouraging (but not surprising) to discover that Einstein was already smarter than you at age sixteen.

A witty, ironic collection of moments from famous lives organized by year of age from infancy to death, A Book of Ages tells you who is doing what, who is on top of the world, who is waiting for his luck to change, who is saying unkind things about whom, who is planning his revenge, who is meeting for the first time, and who Elizabeth Taylor is currently divorcing.

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO?

An Eccentric Miscellany of Achievements,Misdeeds, Crossed Paths, Bypaths, Inventions, Scandals, Child Prodigies, Late Masterpieces, Marriages and Breakups, Feuds, Dead Ends, Second Chances, Adventures and Misadventures, Novels Written and Battles Won and Lost, All Organized by Year of Age.