Doesn't deserve to be forgotten
358589
Somehow, this record entered the oblivion. It was the first digital recording ever released by DG and maybe the engineers were still learning the new technology. The recording suffers from low dynamic balance, but this have a good side effect of enhancing the subtleties of the pianissimos. The secret is not to listen to this recording loud. So why my 5 starts? Two words: Edith Mathis. Her legato on Pamina's second act aria deserves 5, 6, 7, 8, infinite starts. As for everybody else, it is a great cast. I own this CD for several years and it still amazes me.
4677512
I have various views of this book.  First, it is a very important account of one of the great tragedies of our time.  It upsets me that we still only speak of this tragedy without enough specificity.  It is too often just a conversation about the million killed in Rwanda without enough focus on who did the killing.  It wasn't just a tribe against another.  It was people hacking others to death.  This book gets us to some of those individuals - both those murdered and those murdering - and that is the chief reason to appreciate the book and thank Mr. Gourevitch for it.
However, I wish there some images in the book beyond the couple of maps.  Yes, Mr. Gourevitch is a fine writer and helps us see with words.  But this kind of genocide cries out for photographic documentation.  Maybe there isn't any that is appropriate for the book.  But I feel the lack just the same.
Finally, this is an important document of the Rwandan terror, but it isn't the final story.  It isn't the complete story.  That has yet to be written.  But I found reading this book a strange sort of nightmare.  Everything seems real and it has its own frightening impetus, but it is like a dream where you want things to stop but it won't.  It is horrifying and even worse because it all happened to real people and in our time.
And notice how everyone runs from accountability.  It seems like everyone wants to pretend someone else did it and when you find someone who actually can't run away from involvement they want to pretend it was some awful force that made people unavoidably crazy and should therefore be forgotten.  What hogwash.
Thanks to Mr. Gourevitch for getting these stories in print for us.  I hope we burn these stories in our memory.
1692606
It is well written, and holds your attention.  You seem to be there and feel the suffering.  A time that needs to be remembered.
142566
A book that everyone should read and never ever forget the people involved.
2503666
THE LOCAL NEWS is notable for being impossible to put down, and for following a family impacted by violence through many years. Trauma doesn't end in a year or two--it haunts a family forever and this book does a magnificent job of taking the reader on the journey. Though heartbreaking, this story has so much humanity and honest, one sinks deep and thoroughly into the read.
3616537
This is a heartbreaking, beautiful story about a topic about which most of us are unaware. The characters are real and their personal journeys pull us in. For me, it is so important to be invested in the characters and this will not disappoint..
2408468
So many books and movies have the adjective "important" attached to them that the word has lost its significance. But if you'd like to use it anyway, here's a novel on which you can. And for those of us who consider ourselves writers, "The Good Soldier" is doubly important: first it displays the skills of a genuine master of the language, and second it reinforces our awareness of just how far the rest of us hacks still have to go. The plot? It's difficult to discuss without giving too much away; besides, it's the way the story is told that we remember afterwards--the astonishment as the main character, John Dowell comes to realize that everything in his marriage has been a lie, that his relationship with his wife did not deteriorate--it, in fact, never existed. This is no simple tale of adultery and deceit--those words hardly do it justice.

So many famous writers have extolled "The Good Soldier" that any one reader's review seems superfluous. Including mine.... Read the book.
626233
I really feel like this book is underrated and lacking the attention it deserves. Not gonna spoil anything in this review so no worries. Something i forgot to mention in the first book is Neasa lives a really clean and green kind of lifestyle, something that since going vegan I can really relate to and understand better although that doesn't mean that people of different lifestyles won't enjoy the book for the story it offers, its just something that called out to me. The traveling in this book continues opening up my mind to more to places I had never before actually thought worth seeing like Chile and Paris. Another thing that continues in this part of the story is the list of books Neasa gets through, once again helping me find interesting titles to read next.

One of the things I like best about this book is that depending on the age you read it at, there is a different lesson to be learned based on the maturity and change of mentality you may have had since the last time you read it and believe me when I say the messages are very powerful and possibly life changing. Sometimes by trying to achieve whats best for our loved ones we make things worse for them in the long run and possibly even hurt them live life everyday, enjoy what it throws at you and stop trying to take control of everything is one of the messages that resonated deeply with me.

However that being said, this book is very saddening and the worse part is accepting the realisation that the story really couldn't have ended any other way as sad as it is because of the decisions made. Its hard to cope with the knowledge that had you as a reader been a part of the story you could have stepped in and maybe changed things whereas Neasa cant.

Y is a story worth reading and coming back to every few years and like I said very underrated. I highly recommend it and look forward to more stories from Rain Arlender in the future hopefully with physical copies of her work :)
2779520
Forgiveness.  Is it really important?  "Things Worth Remembering" is a beautiful example of how important forgiveness is.  Kendy loves her only daughter Maisey more than life itself and until Maisey was 13 they had the perfect mother / daughter relationship.  Then Kendy entered a very dark period in her life and the relationship they had was destroyed beyond repair and Kendy doesn't know what to do to fix it.  The problem is that Kendy doesn't have all the information, or rather Maisey has more information than Kendy realizes she does.  Too much information can be a very bad thing and Maisey has never been able to forgive her mom.  Now she is getting married to a wonderful man and everything comes to a head.  What will happen when the darkness finally sees the light?

  Jackina Stark has an amazing way of delving deep into her characters and bringing them to life.  Kendy and Maisey are incredible people in their own rights and then Luke (Kendy's husband) and Marcus (Maisey's soon to be husband) are wonderfully strong secondary characters that many times are the reason the story moves forward.  The overall theme of the book, how unforgiveness will change who you are and destroy your happiness, is so well spoken in Jackina's voice that I will recommend this book strongly to any woman's fiction lovers.  Excellent.
3895125
I seldom write reviews. Once a book is read, I move on. However, Last year I only read about 3 books worth remembering, and this was one of them, so I felt it was worth the time to stop and give it some stars. Touching and memorable. You will become a part of the story as you listen or read.
3897309
I gave this reading 5 stars because some would like to forget and some can't. My best friend recommended this book. I thank her for it, although many of us are shielded from it we still must remember from once we came. I look forward to reading Tess Allen's other books.
2574387
Immaculee takes great care to present her recollection of her story to the most accurate degree. I greatly appreciated this honesty because in cases of grave misfortune, nothing is gained by sugar-coating the truth of the matter. In Rwanda, families were torn apart, children were chopped to pieces, and friends turned against their closest non-blood family members. Immaculee faced a horrific time as her home was destroyed and her family murdered in cold blood. Nothing about this historical occurrence is fiction and shouldn't be treated as such. Some may say that this blunt presentation of the facts is gruesome or inappropriate but I believe presenting it any other way is just an injustice to those individuals who lost their lives in the Rwandan Genocide. Everybody needs to be aware of the horrific acts occurring around the world because it is impossible to live in a disconnected timeline; everything is connected and that fact cannot be ignored.

Beyond the interesting nature of a first-hand, factual delivery of a situation that is little known by the general population, this book is beneficial to read because it presents an alternate outcome for those people so deeply angered by injustice. Immaculee probably wouldn't have been thought ill of if she took revenge upon the people who killed her family. Still, I believe so much more is thought of her because of her ability to move past that and enter a state of forgiveness that many people may have forgotten is an option. Her spirituality, or just her strength, can be applied to countless situations and I believe her method of forgiveness would be very useful to dispel the anger that seems to permeate the air of society today.
3370621
It takes you into the lives of some extrordianry, compassionate people.  I knew Warsaw saw the worst of that war, but now I realize just how much they lost and sacrificed.  It is an important part of history...we should not forget, lest we allow it to repeat itself.
If every person could have been just a little bit this brave...so many more people could have been helped?
Oh, there will never be an end to the heroic stories and valliant efforts of humble and brave citizens in that war-torn continent...I've read many, and this one is unique and inspiring.
1411048
For reasons that we many of us can readily imagine, the true story of the service and acts of heroism in World War II among the African-American troops of the U. S. Army ("Buffalo Soldiers") was "buried" for many years.  The acts of supreme sacrifice by men such as Lieutenant John Fox from Ohio deserve to be told, appreciated, and celebrated.  For decades these men were denied the recognition that they so richly deserved and earned; once "lost records" were found, seven of these men, including Lt. Fox, were belatedly granted the Congressional Medal of Honor.

This true story comes from an unlikely source, an English boy who with his Mother returned to a tiny northern Tuscan village for their summer vacation with relatives there in 1940.  Shortly after their arrival, the actions of Hitler and Mussolini made it impossible for them to leave until more than a year after the war was over.

For these years, this young boy observed the impact of the war upon the residents of this isolated small town: first in trying to produce or acquire enough food or medical care to keep them alive, and finally in late 1944 -- at Christmas -- when the village becomes a focal point of the major battle that occurred on Tuscan soil during the entire war.  His mother had assumed that they would be safe in this tiny remote village, but she became the first casualty of the war there when she sustained a serious head wound in an artillery bombardment.

This is also an intimate story of village life and village people in this old community founded by the Romans -- Sommocolonia, Italy -- who ultimately were forced to endure the direct and terrible impacts of war when more than half of the houses and other buildings in the village were destroyed, changing their fates and their future.

Sommocolonia of today, with fewer than 50 full-time residents, is still a lure to English-speaking people, most of whom have family ties to the village.  Its high vantage point provides a magnificent view of the mountains that surround on all sides.  But the real and horrible wounds of war, though superficially hidden, are still there for all to see, both in the buildings and in the families of the remaining residents.

This is a compelling tale of real life in war by a man who as a young boy had a unique, unlikely, and unwelcome opportunity to observe first hand.  It deserves to be read.
1143099
I want to thank Jerry Burgan for writing this book. It is important, not just to history but also to the writer, to reflect on a life that has touched that of other people. Like tens of thousands other people, "You Were On My Mind" was a big deal in my young life. But perhaps more than for other folks, the entire first album was and remains a treat. I saw from Jerry's introduction that my musical tastes were very similar to his (except for the spiritual stuff), and what was called folk music was important to me when regular pop music meant more to many of those around me. I knew a guy or two who rebelled at the transformation into rock, but I had no problems with that. Both would exist for me, neither repressing the other.

And his description of the life of a successful pop group--however fleeting--is just the kind of record the world needs to last beyond the group and its members. I'm the same age as those folks, but I suspect that even younger people will find much to explain who their parents and grandparents were. And several documents or other records (my beloved Chad Mitchell Trio has a wonderful DVD spanning their career) already exist to provide guidance for understanding this period of our cultural heritage. Jerry's footnotes even add references to the more scholarly treatments of this kind of history.

I noticed some years ago that the act of writing about events of my life helped me understand those events the way I could not as they were happening. There is no doubt that writing this book helped Jerry, too, but in doing so provides entertainment and enlightenment for anyone of his generation who cares to revisit those heady times.
3138342
I don't usually review books. This one is amazing and gives credit where credit is long overdue. All of these people are deserving of fame.
4362764
The book is wonderful and heartbreaking.  It should be required reading for any course on the Holocaust, because there is so much to say about all the
people who were directly affected, including, of course, those who are of the second generation.  Not only were the children of those in the camps children of survivors, but as the author makes clear, those who were able to leave but unable to save their relatives led lives of underlying guilt and horror which affected their children as well.  The letters shared by the author are heart-rending, but a necessary reminder of what should never be forgotten.