Sixty years later, Gertrude's words still ring true. ...
595374
Sixty years later, Gertrude's words still ring true. I only cross the dangerous streets in Paris in pace with a French person. They haven't lost their stride.
4682520
I was amazed at how familiar the play about Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was when I started reading it. The womanizing influences in philosophy and psychology would have been in favor of a version based on the point of view of Gertrude as mother faux king of political struggles and family squabbles. Shakespeare did not have to worry about a suitcase weapon causing an American Hiroshima when our tipping point became the end of life as we know it on the whole planet.
1386577
You just have to read the prologue of this fantastic book to appreciate the wonderful writing of Martha Gelhourn. I read it years ago and it continues to haunt me - the life she lived was so real and bold. I think she is, on many ways, one of the finest voices I've heard.
3001938
I read this book in 1973, I was thirteen at the time, and it still resonates in my memory. I don't know what other endorsement I can give it - except that after 37 years I remember it vividly and it changed the way I thought...
532743
I love the archaic vernacular in this book, it describes a simpler time, yet is timeless in describing the travails of boyhood. I first read it more than 30 years ago as a wayward waif myself, but enjoyed it immensely more this time as I reminisced on the halcyon days of childhood.  I am grateful to the person responsible for the digital translation for keeping the book true to form, not replacing or eradicating words deemed unacceptable in todays "enlightened" society. I will probably re-read it again very soon!
2578366
It has been over half a century since I read Anne Frank's diary, but it had such an impact on my life that I have never forgotten it.  Today I am buying a copy for my great-granddaughters, just as I did for their mother & grandmother when they were of appropriate ages.

Anne is long gone, but her message for humanity lives on.  I don't think my life & worldview would be the same if you have not allowed me to share those days in Amsterdam.  Thank you, Anne.
1460372
could not put it down. ive come across several hoarders in my life time and Gertrude is a prime example.  oh, i would love to haved her live down the road from me  Living next door might be too close !  Life would never be boring and always expecting something excitingly to happen each day. I am  in my middle 70's now  and could relate to so many of her tghoughts and ideas.  Guess i have alittle Gertrude in me.  please i want more of her. this would make awesome tv show .  keep the laugher and joy coming.  you are doing a great work and i'm reading every bolok of yours i can find
4603634
Written in the 60s but timeless in its message that it's what we think that has great bearing on the events of our lives
3825278
I read this book about 40 years ago (and several times after that).  I love how Mrs. Lindbergh spoke to any woman about life, love, children and loss.  I seemed to have lost my copy during a move a few years ago and decided to replace it after all these years.  It's as relevant today as it was 40 years ago and I can apply to my life today.  She writes clearly and passionately.  I'm buying copies for my daughters.
2965503
I must have read LITTLE WOMEN when I was about ten years old, yet, it is one of those exceptional examples of literature that stays with you years after you've first come to know the March sisters, their trials, triumphs, joys and sorrow.  This beautiful book truly captures the strength of family, the courage one must exercise in the face of great adversity and the wisdom we are lucky to acquire if we get through it in one piece.  Jo March is the epitome of the irrerepressible, hot-headed and adventurous tomboy.  Her character was actually based on the personality of the author, Louisa May Alcott.  Meg is the eldest and the most traditionally-minded,  Beth is the more retiring, shy and selfless one and Amy is the selfish and strategic one.  Together, they all are devoted to and have great respect for their mother, Marmee March, and await the arrival of their father who is serving as a chaplain for the Union Army.

LITTLE WOMEN is the first book in a series chronicling the lives of these intriguing and well-developed characters.  Even more than one hundred years later, this book still presents timeless themes of friendship, courage, dedication, faith and determination.  It's not difficult to see why this story was retold so many times in film.
4931678
18 years since the last rating and 22 years after publishing, I bring you word that the relevancy is perfectly intact. This book does not age.
809260
Although I read and enjoyed this book weeks ago, I find it is still rolling around in my mind so much that I am compelled to post this comment.  I read lots of biographies and this is one of the best from recent years.  The book is especially relevant for anyone old enough to remember the idealistic social atmosphere of the late 1960s and the dark underside of it that the Manson Family killings exposed.  Even if you are not old enough to remember, I strongly recommend that you read this book anyway because the author does such a good job of evoking early and middle 20th century times and values.  Many details of Manson's formative years are revealed to provide an insightful understanding of his later crimes.  I read Helter Skelter when it came out decades ago and this Manson biography goes much farther to enable readers to understand how and why Charlie operated the way he did.  The author's conclusion is especially powerful when he points out that today's audiences rarely remember the names of the killers in Columbine, Colorado, or Virginia Tech, or Newtown, Connecticut, but Manson's name has resonated in American culture for over 44 years.
4247372
This book isn't going to hold up to todays standard of PC because it was written 80+ years ago, times change but the message of this book is still a beautiful tale of the lengths a mother will go to in order to protect, guide and support her child. She does not say that she is going drag him back from his adventures and in most she actually says that she will support him and look after him. IE being a gardener to look after him as a flower, hiking a mountain to be with him, being the tree that he comes home too, joining the circus with him etc. Something when taken out of context might come off as controlling IE saying that as the wind she will blow him where she wants him to go but the spirit of it is to say that she will guide him if he sails off.
3496651
Few people will remember today the great Swedish-born feminist (and great friend of poet Rainer Maria Rilke) Ellen Karolina Sofia Key (1849-1926), a woman who changed the way Europeans raised their children in the last decades of the 19th century.

The Morality of Woman is one of her later works, published in her early 70s in 1911, yet anyone who looks at this excellent English-language edition made available at no cost whatsoever through the magic of Amazon and Kindle, will think it the work of a much younger woman. She is, if anything, more relevant today (because we are tackling the problems of children in much more difficult developing-nation environments Key could even have imagined). Anyone with an interest in family life, and in making the future a better place, will savor this book.

It is Key, after all who said: "Side by side with the class war, the culture war must ceaselessly be waged by the young. And it is upon the young whom rests the responsibility of making a new society better for all than the old could ever be." Sounds more 21st century than 19th, does it not?
1454295
I have been reading Viorst since I was in my 20s; I am now in my 60s.  She is an incredibly wise woman.
1628493
As a listener since 1962, the best review I can offer is to say that I am still listening.
591159
My good friend, Sue Eiler Daniel, gave me a copy of this book for my 66th birthday!  Little did I know that it would fill in the blanks, commit to text, and memoriaize the tumultous and caring times of the late 60's in higher education in Indiana.  The two wonen whom I loved and respected (other than my mother) most in my life are in this book (Bev Stone and Barb Cook), and the soon-to-be Dean Betty Nelson (then a newbie!), was a rising star.  Those of us who grabbed the golden ring and came back to Purdue-again and again-will not soon forget the women on whose shoulders we stood.  And this book shows how they elevated us, and would have celebrated our successes!