FASCINATING, WELL-WRITTEN and VERY PERSONAL
345970
Fascinating, both in terms of the personal account of life as a Jewish child and teen in Germany pre-WWII, and the adventures of a teenager, from Germany, to Switzerland, to France to the U.S. WB's descriptions of the world, the politics and his own inner life, feelings, observations, challenges and joys is truly both entertaining and enlightening.  a great read!
4093708
Fascinating, troubling and beautifully written
1013366
Katherine Graham's "Personal History" combines all of the necessary elements of biography to create an immensely entertaining and sometimes touching portrait of a fascinating woman.  Her life was interesting enough that it would make a good story for even a mediocre author; but clearly Graham did not become the head of the Washington Post without learning the essence of a well turned phrase.  Her witty and intelligent prose complements her captivating story and creates an autobiography worthy of its Pulitzer Prize.
I found Graham's story intriguing on three levels, the first of which is (as the title states) personal.  Much of the first half of the book focuses on her family life, growing up in the extremely wealthy Meyer household, her relations with her parents, and eventually her meeting and marrying Phil Graham.  All of the central characters are interesting, but I was personally struck by her discussion of her mother, Agnes Meyer, a woman both brilliant and driven, yet emotionally aloof from her family.  Graham's candor respecting her mother is impressive.  She admits at one point: "I can't say I think Mother genuinely loved us" (p. 51) and remembers that in turn her younger sister loved their governess more than Mrs. Meyer  (p. 34).  But Graham does not unfairly oversimplify her mother; she faithfully describes the true complexity of their relationship, admitting that resentment and love co-existed (p. 439).  Graham does justice to everyone in her narrative and there simply isn't space enough here to describe fully all of the crucial characters.
The second level of interest (which dominates the latter half of the book) is the story of the Washington Post and the newspaper industry in general.  Graham covers the major milestones of Post from her father's acquisition in 1933 to its current management by her son, Don.  Graham herself was publisher during the most important years for the Post and describes three main events: the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and the Pressmen's Strike in 1975.  All three episodes are of interest, but I actually was most absorbed by the last.  Graham clearly evokes the tension felt on all sides, and the great efforts made by those dedicated to continued publication who practically lived in the Post building.  I was amazed to read that before they had repaired their own presses (smashed by the striking workers) they hired helicoptors to fly pages of type out to other publishers (p. 544).  Watergate was also interesting. :)
The third captivating aspect of this book is its ability to connect the reader to the great figures of the 20th century through its empathetic protagonist.  Katherine Graham knew seemingly every prominent individual and makes them seem more human than do textbooks or newsreel footage.  When she was 11, she travelled to Europe where she met Albert Einstein: "He was simply grand!  His hair is positively a nest..." (p. 41).  She had dinners with John and Bobby Kennedy and her husband was partially responsible for LBJ's vice-presidency.  In 1966 Truman Capote held a lavish and exclusive party at which Graham was the guest of honor.  She clearly has respect for these celebrities and political leaders, but she also portrays them as what they were: human and fallible.  I find this insider's perspective adds a great deal of flavor to history.
Do note that this is a sizable read, weighing in slightly over 600 pages.  But as I hope this review conveyed, I found nearly all of those pages quite enjoyable.  "Personal History" combines a fascinating life, excellent writing, and (most importantly) Graham's unflinching self-scrutiny.  Sure to keep you reading!
3894192
It will never cease to amaze me at the life some people live.  Lucinda Clarke (pen name) has written an incredible Memoir about her life as a child with a cruel, unloving mother, and her adulthood with a husband who changes jobs as often as socks and leads her to foreign places most of us will never see.  Lucinda is a descriptive writer, albeit a few errors here and there, with a sense of humor.  She lives an incredibly fascinating life and meets famous people along the way, despite a husband who is as unreliable as they come.  While I understand Lucinda's childhood left her with deep emotional scars, at some point much earlier in the marriage, I personally would have told this man to get out.  I, like another reviewer of this Memoir, struggled to understand why Lucinda allowed herself to be lied to repeatedly, put up with extramarital affairs, was clueless as to her financial situation and yet continued to do nothing about it for years and years and years.  Nonetheless, I'm not here to judge that aspect, but to commend the writing of the book and the sheer adventure of her life.
4853129
Nikki Merediths personal experiences and relationships with Patricia Krenwinkle and Leslie Van Houten is a fascinating and in depth dealing with understanding and empathy.  The book is not a sensationalised account of two murderers and a journalist hoping to find an angle that will push this further.  What we have is a book that is thought provoking and raises questions on the human spirit and asks can a person change from their early self.

Meredith has a very interesting writing style that delves the reader into the subject matter without speaking down or pushing her ideals forth.  Her strengths comes with providing the facts and letting the reader come up with their own understanding and she gives you enough time to digest the information before moving on.

Interestingly enough, the author was in high school who would become a Manson member years later.  She looks into their relationship at this point and examines how they both changed as people.  Starting out with very similar views but leading very different paths.  This is what makes the book rich reading from my point of view, Meredith examines the situations with Krenwinkle and Van Houten and relates this to her own life and her own decisions and experiences.

Leading in through this perspective, lifts the subject matter above the usual fare that is out there dealing with the Manson family or any true crime books out there.  Meredith has provided an interesting subject and personalised it to become real.  As for peoples understanding or changing of perspective on how you feel about Krenwinkle or Van Houten will depend on your own personal views but this book will challenge even though who have very strict views on this.

This is an outstanding look into the lives of two women who made some bad decisions which lead them down a dark path whilst in their late teens to early 20s and the prices they have paid.  It deals with changes of personality, thoughts and overview people have as they go into their 60s to 70s.  It is a fact that as we mature, we are seldom the same person we were in our younger days than what we are now.  This is a must read and highly recommended.  Fascinating, personable and thought provoking in an intelligent and personal way.
2788280
One advantage of writing an autobiography is that you obviously control what the reader finds out about you. I suspect that Mr. Marquez omits many things about himself in this wonderful, rambling memoir of nearly 500 pages; but he gives us story after story on practically every page; and we do get a myriad of fascinating details about both the man, his family and friends and his thoughts on writers and writing. Marquez comes from a large Colombian family, both in and outside marriage, and says that he owes his nature and "way of thinking" to the women in his family who had "strong characters and tender hearts." His mother obviously fits this description. Although intensely jealous of her husband's infidelities, she brings home one of her husband's children born outside their marriage because "'the same blood that's in my children's veins just can't go wandering around out there.'" In addition to Marguez's parents, whom we recognize in LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, there are countless other fascinating people and stories  seen and told through the eyes of this great writer. Who else, for example, would know a blind accordian repairman? Or whose family would dig up the remains of Marquez's grandmother Tranquilina and transport her in a sack when they make one of their many moves? It is any wonder that Marquez loved Faulkner's AS I LAY DYING?
On writers and writing-- Marquez has always loved poetry and believes that the short story is superior to the novel, this from a man who has given the world ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE and LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA. It is not surprising that he prefers the feature story to an interview or straight reporting. Marquez readily admits that dialogue is not his forte. (We'll gladly settle for his magical tales, however.) He would agree that good readers make good writers as he has read everyone. Writers in English include D. H Lawrence, Graham Greene, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, Erskine Caldwell, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne et al. Hawthorne's THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES "marked" him for life. Upon discovering that a wooden crate that arrived  one morning was filled with books, he writes: "My heart leaded up before I did. . . The first thing I did was to display the books on the table in the dining room while my mother finished clearing away the breakfast dishes." He goes on to "smell" them as he says he always does with new books.
Of course this volume is chockfull of sparse, wondrous descriptions. Drugs create an "artificial paradise." A man at an "all-night haunt" is "an Adonois-like man in his sixties." The moon is a "cold plate in the sky." Someone wears a "merinque-white uniform." Another person's hair was so unruly, that it "looked borrowed." An old man has a "maternal belly."
This volume is the first of a trilogy. We certainly hope that Mr. Marquez lives to finish his marvelous tale.
4487522
Well written, very informative, hard to put down
637834
Before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusions, I was sent a free review copy of this book, rather than because I'm investigating IVF! Having said that, it's a subject that I did have cause to be interested in personally years ago, and so I understood where the author was coming from in needing to write this book.

It's a well-written, coherent and detailed account of her personal experience of three rounds of IVF, resulting, fortunately, in the birth of healthy twins. (I don't think that's a plot spoiler as it's already in the title and blurb!) She says she is a very private person, so it must have taken huge courage and conviction to share such personal information with the world at large.

It must be stressed this is a personal account by a non-medical person and only conveys what were the right decisions for the author - e.g. switching clinics and methods part-way through her journey, and going private.

I think this would be a compelling and invaluable read for anyone who is either considering IVF themselves, already embarked on it, or who knows someone else going through the process. It makes it very clear that it involves not just an incredibly complex medical procedure that takes over your whole life for months at a time, but also a huge strain emotionally and mentally. Tru Spencer was one of the lucky ones - she ended up with the family that she yearned for. Many don't. I think it's also important for people considering IVF, especially at their own vast expense, that it isn't a guaranteed fix, and it would have been entirely possible for this story to have ended in continuing childlessness.

It would be a good idea for anyone contemplating undergoing IVF to read this book first, to decide whether they have the stamina for it - and to be clear that there is absolutely no shame in deciding that this highly interventional process is not for you.

It would also be a good idea for medical staff working in this area to read this personal account, to help them understand more clearly exactly what it feels like, physically, mentally and emotionally, to be the patient - too easy to forget, as Tru's experience indicates, when administering IVF is simply your daily routine.

By the way, I love the fact that this book has a light, pretty, non-threatening, non-medical cover in the colours of sugared almonds - it's almost like a recommended decorating theme for the nursery. A nice, optimistic, gentle touch.

NB This was written in the UK in the context of the British National Health Service and its private equivalent.
1252115
Through a combination of research, explanation, and personal anecdotes, the author shares his expertise with working with people with addictions. It's a wonderfully human account--addicts are not just seen as criminals or "just junkies", but as actual people with problems well beyond their addictions. The actual nature of addiction--as a coping mechanism, not something people deliberately did to mess up their lives--is explored in great detail. And the author makes a very compelling argument for more compassionate, less judgemental forms of reahbilitation and treatment, rather than simply sticking addicts in prisons to rot. This is now on my list of books I feel everyone should read.
1153706
Dr. Tom Godwin has written an excellent book that at first seems to be the memoires of a highly successful cardiologist. It would be well worth reading if that were all it was, as this man has been a pioneer in the specialty of cardiology during a period of amazing progress in treating conditions that in earlier times would have been a death sentence.

But, it turns out the quite fascinating story of Tom Godwin's  life is interwoven with many subthemes: medical education and its flaws, hospital politics, the rewards of helping others, the anguish of not being able to help, the remarkable teamwork among medical professionals, and the experience of treating very sick doctors and then being one himself.  All of this comes alive in a wonderfully readable narrative that is by turns, informative, sobering, funny, sad, touching, uplifting, and at all times engaging.  Once you start reading, you will find it very difficult to put this book down.

The final and most important chapter of this book contains the author's thoughts about how the practice of medicine needs to change now in response to the new and very expensive medical treatments that are outgrowths of  a convergence of  technologies rooted in the knowledge explosion in genetics, biosynthesis, bioengineering, imaging, and computer science.  His experience in the Canadian national health system provides an important perspective that American readers would do well to understand as the debate about Obama care moves toward a very likely radical restructuring of medical care delivery in the United States with the objective of universal coverage. Godwin feels that issues of disease prevention, medical care rationing, determining best medical practices, and dealing with end-of-life care all must be faced, not ignored, if universal medical care is to be economically viable in an era of new, but incredibly expensive medical miracles.
4808540
A fascinating autobiographic memoir of a meaningful life well lived.  From the life of a teenager with no less a person than John von Neumann, a true intellectual genius mathematician, to her own trail-blazing life as one of the first women to break through the "Glass ceiling" of the male-dominated Board Rooms and executive suites of the Fortune 500, and a stint as a member of the Presidents Council of Economic Advisors, Ms. Whitman gives us a rare glimpse behind the scenes of the seats of power.  amazingly, amidst all this activitiy she was able to live a "normal" family life with a supportive husband and a couple of (not surprisingly) talented children.  I was drawn in early and found it a compelling read.
2680347
First of all, this is a fascinating and extremely well-told and honest look at one person's experience with infertility and having a severely-premature child in a NICU.  The author covers the experience in vivid detail, yet with a detachment and wry humor that keeps the book very readable.  I would NOT recommend this book for anyone who's trying to become pregnant or who is already pregnant, but it's a great read for anyone else who's not already emotionally invested in a birth.  It is simply a very well-written, compelling book.

That said, there's a subtext running through the book, the author's anxiety, which I found fascinating, because I share it, although to a lesser degree.  (One of the comments that rang true for me in the book is when the author observed that while optimists see the glass half-full, and pessimists see the glass half-empty, those of us with anxiety issues see the glass and think about how the contents are evaporating and will soon be totally gone.)  Anxiety is a tremendous happiness killer, and to no real purpose.  The things we fear are rarely the things that happen, and anxiety is rarely helpful in preparation; if anything, anxiety ensures that we'll already be exhausted when a real problem strikes.  Aside from the compelling story of the NICU, I found her description of how her life-long (severe) anxiety resolved over this experience to be quite interesting.  Having a real problem that absorbed her life and which she was able to overcome gave her a new perspective and a peace about day to day living.  This alone, for me, makes the book worth another read.

In short, this is a terrific book, very well-written, that will give you a first-hand look at like in a NICU.  But it will also give you some good perspective for how to take life one day at a time, and enjoy the life you have.
3231317
I had this book in my posession for a few months. My attitude was, "I will eventually get around to reading it." Finally, one day I picked it up and began to read. I could not put it down after reading the first few pages. I was mesmerized and read it very quickly from cover to cover. Being the subject of an historical event the author also intertwined his personal history within these pages. What is fascinating is the personal and human conection he has had with this facility. He was able to convey his own very emotional connection with the abbey as it was part of his personal journey in life. This book gives this historical, very sad event, a heart and soul. It examines the minds of young men of the sixties who chose to live such a life. You are able to enter their minds and get a glimpse of what went on behind Monastery walls. Written as no researching historian could write, this is a personal story as it relates to human turmoil, frustration and ultimately connection with our own past.
143735
This book is not only a well-written account of a very personal story -- the author has also taken the time to include both the up-to-date research and the science relating to sexuality. Thank you for this book.
1613989
I thoroughly enjoyed this personal memoir of a woman working as a diplomat's spouse in pre-WWII Latvia.  Would highly recommend it to anyone interested in an engaging read about a place that has little available about it in English.  Benton's description of fleeing Europe via the trans-Siberian RR in Soviet Russia is fascinating, as is her oh-so-British optimism and spirit.
4903928
I'm sure this book will be of great interest to anyone who is a twin or involved in adoption; however, as a reader fitting into neither category, I wholeheartedly recommend it to any and every reader. It's a fascinating story told in deft and unsparing prose, alternating between the two women's perspectives. Their voices and viewpoints differ, but they both write with a great deal of self-unawareness and intelligence, and not a drop of self-pity. I could not put the book down.

Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein are identical twins separated at birth and adopted into families who knew neither of their twinhood nor their birth-mother's mental illness. At age 35 and living in Paris, Elyse began a casual search for her birth parents and discovered eventually that she had an identical twin. Back in New York a few months later, she enlisted the help of the adoption agency, who connected the two women. The book chronicles their evolution into sisterhood, their examination of selfhood, and their investigation into the misguided adoption practices and unethical experiment that had originally separated them.

The subject matter is, of course, inherently fascinating. To make it even better, the sisters are wonderful storytellers, able to move the narrative along while conveying their separate thought processes and changing emotions. Their complete lack of self-dramatization only adds to the poignance of the story, especially as they begin a final search for their birth mother and her family. By the end of the story, my eyes were filled with tears for the woman who became pregnant in difficult circumstances in an unforgiving era, but produced such daughters.

Highest recommendation.
2208079
This is a truly wonderfully-written book (and I'm not typically a "memoir fan"). Revealing, informative, engaging, horrifying... and humorous all at the same time -- a very difficult feat for any author.  The impact of this little-known (to me) syndrome on a family is enormous, and the fact that there is such a happy ending is a surprise in itself.  I am impressed by how Lauren Larsen has since dedicated her life in such an inspirational manner.  GREAT READ, very well worth your while!